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diff --git a/44226-h.zip b/44226-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cb653d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/44226-h.zip diff --git a/44226-h/44226-h.htm b/44226-h/44226-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9dc7531 --- /dev/null +++ b/44226-h/44226-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5395 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html +PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<title> +The Abandoned Farmers, by Irvin S. Cobb +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 100%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} + span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 } + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + --> +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abandoned Farmers, by Irvin S. Cobb + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Abandoned Farmers +His Humorous Account of a Retreat from the City to the Farm + +Author: Irvin S. Cobb + +Release Date: November 18, 2013 [EBook #44226] +Last Updated: March 11, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABANDONED FARMERS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + +<div style="height: 8em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h1> +THE ABANDONED FARMERS +</h1> +<h3> +His Humorous Account Of A Retreat From The City To The Farm +</h3> +<h2> +By Irvin S. Cobb +</h2> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<p> +<b>CONTENTS</b> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE ABANDONED FARMERS</b> </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. WHICH REALLY IS A PREFACE IN DISGUISE +</a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER II. THE START OF A DREAM </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER III. THREE YEARS ELAPSE </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER IV. HAPPY DAYS FOR MAJOR GLOOM </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER V. IN WHICH WE BORE FOE WATER </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VI. TWO MORE YEARS ELAPSE </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VII. “AND SOLD TO——” </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER VIII, THE ADVENTURE OF LADY MAUDE </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER IX. US LANDED PROPRIETORS </a> +</p> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE ABANDONED FARMERS +</h2> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER I. WHICH REALLY IS A PREFACE IN DISGUISE +</h2> +<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t is the inclination of the average reader to skip prefaces. For this I +do not in the least blame him. Skipping the preface is one of my favorite +literary pursuits. To catch me napping a preface must creep up quietly and +take me, as it were, unawares. +</p> +<p> +But in this case sundry prefatory remarks became necessary. It was +essential that they should be inserted into this volume in order that +certain things might be made plain. The questions were: How and where? +After giving the matter considerable thought I decided to slip them in +right here, included, as they are, with the body of the text and further +disguised by masquerading themselves under a chapter heading, with a view +in mind of hoodwinking you into pursuing the course of what briefly I have +to say touching on the circumstances attending the production of the main +contents. Let me explain: +</p> +<p> +Chapter II, coming immediately after this one, was written first of all; +written as an independent contribution to American letters. At the time of +writing it I had no thought that out of it, subsequently, would grow +material for additional and supplementary offerings upon the same general +theme and inter-related themes. It had a basis of verity, as all things in +this life properly should have, but I shall not attempt to deny that +largely it deals with what more or less is figurative and fanciful. The +incident of the finding of the missing will in the ruins of the old mill +is a pure figment of the imagination; so, too, the passage relating to the +search for the lost heir (Page 55) and the startling outcome of that +search. +</p> +<p> +Three years later, actual events in the meantime having sufficiently +justified the taking of such steps, I prepared the matter which here is +presented in Chapters III, IV and V, inclusive. Intervened then a break of +approximately two years more, when the tale was completed substantially in +its present form. In all of these latter installments I adhered closely to +facts, merely adding here and there sprinklings of fancy, like dashes of +paprika on a stew, in order to give, as I fondly hoped, spice to my +recital. +</p> +<p> +One of the prime desires now, in consolidating the entire narrative within +these covers, is to round out, from inception to finish, the record of our +strange adventures in connection with our quest for an abandoned farm and +on our becoming abandoned farmers, trusting that others, following our +examples, may perhaps profit in some small degree by our mistakes as here +set forth and perhaps ultimately when their dreams have come true, too, +share in that proud joy of possession which is ours. Another object, +largely altruistic in its nature, is to afford opportunity for the reader, +by comparison of the chronological sub-divisions into which the story +falls, to decide whether with the passage of time, my style of writing +shows a tendency toward improvement or an increasing and enhanced +faultiness. Those who feel inclined to write me upon the subject are +notified that the author is most sensible in this regard, being ever ready +to welcome criticism, provided only the criticism be favorable in tone. +Finally there is herewith confessed a third motive, namely, an ambition +that a considerable number of persons may see their way clear to buy this +book. +</p> +<p> +Quite aside from my chief aim as a writer, which is from time to time to +enrich our native literature, I admit to sharing with nearly all writers +and with practically all publishers a possibly selfish but not altogether +unnatural craving. When I have prepared the material for a volume I desire +that the volume may sell, which means royalties, which means cash in hand. +The man who labors for art's sake alone nearly always labors for art's +sake alone; at least usually he appears to get very little else out of his +toil while he is alive. After his death posterity may enshrine him, but +posterity, as some one has aptly said, butters no parsnips. I may state +that I am almost passionately fond of my parsnips, well-buttered. My +publisher is also one of our leading parsnip-lovers. These facts should be +borne in mind by prospective purchasers of the book. +</p> +<p> +I believe that is about all I would care to say in the introductory phase. +With these few remarks, therefore, the attention of the reader +respectfully is directed to Chapter II and points beyond. +</p> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER II. THE START OF A DREAM +</h2> +<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>or years it was the dream of our life—I should say our lives, since +my wife shared this vision with me—to own an abandoned farm. The +idea first came to us through reading articles that appeared in the +various magazines and newspapers telling of the sudden growth of what I +may call the aban-doned-farm industry. +</p> +<p> +It seemed that New England in general—and the state of Connecticut +in particular—was thickly speckled with delightful old places which, +through overcultivation or ill-treatment, had become for the time being +sterile and non-productive; so that the original owners had moved away to +the nearby manufacturing towns, leaving their ancestral homesteads empty +and their ancestral acres idle. As a result there were great numbers of +desirable places, any one of which might be had for a song. That was the +term most commonly used by the writers of these articles—abandoned +farms going for a song. Now, singing is not my forte; still, I made up my +mind that if such indeed was the case I would sing a little, accompanying +myself on my bank balance, and win me an abandoned farm. +</p> +<p> +The formula as laid down by the authorities was simple in the extreme: +Taking almost any Connecticut town for a starting point, you merely +meandered along an elm-lined road until you came to a desirable location, +which you purchased for the price of the aforesaid song. This formality +being completed, you spent a trivial sum in restoring the fences, and so +on, and modernizing the interior of the house; after which it was a +comparatively easy task to restore the land to productiveness by processes +of intensive agriculture—details procurable from any standard book +on the subject or through easy lessons by mail. And so presently, with +scarcely any trouble or expense at all, you were the possessor of a +delightful country estate upon which to spend your declining years. It +made no difference whether you were one of those persons who had never to +date declined anything of value; there was no telling when you might start +in. +</p> +<p> +I could shut my eyes and see the whole delectable prospect: Upon a gentle +eminence crowned with ancient trees stood the rambling old manse, filled +with marvelous antique furniture, grandfather's clocks dating back to the +whaling days, spinning wheels, pottery that came over on the <i>Mayflower</i>, +and all those sorts of things. Round about were the meadows, some under +cultivation and some lying fallow, the latter being dotted at appropriate +intervals with fallow deer. +</p> +<p> +At one side of the house was the orchard, the old gnarly trees crooking +their bent limbs as though inviting one to come and pluck the sun-kissed +fruit from the burdened bough; at the other side a purling brook wandering +its way into a greenwood copse, where through all the golden day sang the +feathered warblers indigenous to the climate, including the soft-billed +Greenwich thrush, the Peabody bird, the Pettingill bird, the red worsted +pulse-warmer, and others of the commoner varieties too numerous to +mention. +</p> +<p> +At the back were the abandoned cotes and byres, with an abandoned rooster +crowing lustily upon a henhouse, and an abandoned bull calf disporting +himself in the clover of the pasture. At the front was a rolling vista +undulating gently away to where above the tree-tops there rose the spires +of a typical New England village full of old line Republicans and +characters suitable for putting into short stories. On beyond, past where +a silver lake glinted in the sunshine, was a view either of the distant +Sound or the distant mountains. Personally I intended that my +establishment should be so placed as to command a view of the Sound from +the east windows and of the mountains from the west windows. And all to be +had for a song! Why, the mere thought of it was enough to make a man start +taking vocal culture right away. +</p> +<p> +Besides, I had been waiting impatiently for a long time for an opportunity +to work out several agricultural projects of my own. For example, there +was my notion in regard to the mulberry. The mulberry, as all know, is one +of our most abundant small fruits; but many have objected to it on account +of its woolly appearance and slightly caterpillary taste. My idea was to +cross the mulberry on the slippery elm—pronounced, where I came +from, ellum—producing a fruit which I shall call the mulellum. This +fruit would combine the health-giving qualities of the mulberry with the +agreeable smoothness of the slippery elm; in fact, if my plans worked out +I should have a berry that would go down so slick the consumer could not +taste it at all unless he should eat too many of them and suffer from +indigestion afterward. +</p> +<p> +Then there was my scheme for inducing the common chinch bug to make chintz +curtains. If the silk worms can make silk why should not the chinch bug do +something useful instead of wasting his energies in idle pursuits? This is +what I wished to know. And why should this man Luther Burbank enjoy a +practical monopoly of all these propositions? That was the way I looked at +it; and I figured that an abandoned farm would make an ideal place for +working out such experiments as might come to me from time to time. +</p> +<p> +The trouble was that, though everybody wrote of the abandoned farms in a +broad, general, allur-ing way, nobody gave the exact location of any of +them. I subscribed for one of the monthly publications devoted to country +life along the Eastern seaboard and searched assiduously through its +columns for mention of abandoned farms. The owners of most of the country +places that were advertised for sale made mention of such things as +fourteen master's bedrooms and nine master's baths—showing +undoubtedly that the master would be expected to sleep oftener than he +bathed—sunken gardens and private hunting preserves, private golf +links and private yacht landings. +</p> +<p> +In nearly every instance, also, the advertisement was accompanied by a +halftone picture of a structure greatly resembling the new county court +house they are going to have down at Paducah if the bond issue ever +passes. This seemed a suitable place for holding circuit court in, or even +fiscal court, but it was not exactly the kind of country home that we had +pictured for ourselves. As my wife said, just the detail of washing all +those windows would keep the girl busy fully half the time. Nor did I care +to invest in any sunken gardens. I had sufficient experience in that +direction when we lived in the suburbs and permanently invested about half +of what I made in our eight-by-ten flower bed in an effort to make it +produce the kind of flowers that the florists' catalogues described. You +could not tell us anything about that subject—we knew where a sunken +garden derives its name. We paid good money to know. +</p> +<p> +None of the places advertised in the monthly seemed sufficiently abandoned +for our purposes, so for a little while we were in a quandary. Then I had +a bright thought. I said to myself that undoubtedly abandoned farms were +so cheap the owners did not expect to get any real money for them; they +would probably be willing to take something in exchange. So I began buying +the evening papers and looking through them in the hope of running across +some such item as this: +</p> +<p> +To Exchange—Abandoned farm, centrally located, with large farmhouse, +containing all antique furniture, barns, outbuildings, family graveyard—planted—orchard, +woodland, fields—unplanted—for a collection of postage stamps +in album, an amateur magician's outfit, a guitar with book of +instructions, a safety bicycle, or what have you? Address Abandoned, South +Squantum Center, Connecticut. +</p> +<p> +I found no such offers, however; and in view of what we had read this +seemed stranger still. Finally I decided that the only safe method would +be by first-hand investigation upon the spot. I would go by rail to some +small but accessible hamlet in the lower part of New England. On arriving +there I personally would examine a number of the more attractive abandoned +farms in the immediate vicinity and make a discriminating selection. +Having reached this conclusion I went to bed and slept peacefully—or +at least I went to bed and did so as soon as my wife and I had settled one +point that came up unexpectedly at this juncture. It related to the +smokehouse. I was in favor of turning the smokehouse into a study or +workroom for myself. She thought, though, that by knocking the walls out +and altering the roof and building a pergola on to it, it would make an +ideal summer house in which to serve tea and from which to view the +peaceful landscape of afternoons. +</p> +<p> +We argued this back and forth at some length, each conceding something to +the other's views; and finally we decided to knock out the walls and alter +the roof and have a summer house with a pergola in connection. It was +after we reached this compromise that I slept so peacefully, for now the +whole thing was as good as settled. I marveled at not having thought of it +sooner. +</p> +<p> +It was on a bright and peaceful morning that I alighted from the train at +North Newburybunkport. +</p> +<p> +Considering that it was supposed to be a typical New England village, +North Newbury-bunkport did not appear at first glance to answer to the +customary specifications, such as I had gleaned from my reading of novels +of New England life. I had expected that the platform would be populated +by picturesque natives in quaint clothes, with straws in their mouths and +all whittling; and that the depot agent would wear long chin whiskers and +say “I vum!” with much heartiness at frequent intervals. Right here I wish +to state that so far as my observations go the native who speaks these +words about every other line is no longer on the job. Either I Vum the +Terrible has died or else he has gone to England to play the part of the +typical American millionaire in American plays written by Englishmen. +</p> +<p> +Instead of the loafers, several chauffeurs were idling about the station +and a string of automobiles was drawn up across the road. Just as I +disembarked there drove up a large red bus labeled: Sylvan Dale Summer +Hotel, European and American Plans. The station agent also proved in the +nature of a disappointment. He did not even say “I swan” or “I cal'late!” + or anything of that nature. He wore a pink in his buttonhole and his hair +was scalloped up off his forehead in what is known as the lion tamer's +roach. Approaching, I said to him: +</p> +<p> +“In what direction should I go to find some of the abandoned farms of this +vicinity? I would prefer to go where there is a good assortment to pick +from.” + </p> +<p> +He did not appear to understand, so I repeated the question, at the same +time offering him a cigar. +</p> +<p> +“Bo,” he said, “you've sure got me winging now. You'd better ask Tony +Magnito—he runs the garage three doors up the street from here on +the other side. Tony does a lot of driving round the country for suckers +that come up here, and he might help you.” + </p> +<p> +To reach the garage I had to cross the road, dodging several automobiles +in transit, and then pass two old-fashioned New England houses fronting +close up to the sidewalk. One had the sign of a teahouse over the door, +and in the window of the other, picture postcards, birch-bark souvenirs +and standard varieties of candy were displayed for sale. +</p> +<p> +Despite his foreign-sounding name, Mr. Magnito spoke fair English—that +is, as fair English as any one speaks who employs the Manhattan accent in +so doing. +</p> +<p> +Even after he found out that I did not care to rent a touring car for +sightseeing purposes at five dollars an hour he was quite affable and +accommodating; but my opening question appeared to puzzle him just as in +the case of the depot agent. +</p> +<p> +“Mister,” he said frankly, “I'm sorry, but I don't seem to make you. +What's this thing you is looking for? Tell me over again slow.” + </p> +<p> +Really the ignorance of these villagers regarding one of their principal +products—a product lying, so to speak, at their very doors and +written about constantly in the public prints—was ludicrous. It +would have been laughable if it had not been deplorable. I saw that I +could not indulge in general trade terms. I must be painfully explicit and +simple. +</p> +<p> +“What I am seeking”—I said it very slowly and very distinctly—“is +a farm that has been deserted, so to speak—one that has outlived its +usefulness as a farm proper, and everything like that!” + </p> +<p> +“Oh,” he says, “now I get you! Why didn't you say that in the first place? +The place you're looking for is the old Parham place, out here on the post +road about a mile. August'll take good care of you—that's his +specialty.” + </p> +<p> +“August?” I inquired. “August who?” + </p> +<p> +“August Weinstopper—the guy who runs it,” he explained. “You must +have known August if you lived long in New York. He used to be the steward +at that big hotel at Broadway and Forty-second; that was before he came up +here and opened up the old Parham place as an automobile roadhouse. He's +cleaning up about a thousand a month. Some class to that mantrap! They've +got an orchestra, and nothing but vintage goods on the wine card, and +dancing at all hours. Any night you'll see forty or fifty big cars rolling +up there, bringing swell dames and-” + </p> +<p> +I judge he saw by my expression that he was on a totally wrong tack, +because he stopped short. +</p> +<p> +“Say, mister,” he said, “I guess you'd better step into the post-office +here—next door—and tell your troubles to Miss Plummer. She +knows everything that's going on round here—and she ought to, too, +seeing as she gets first chance at all the circulars and postal cards that +come in. Besides, I gotter be changing that gasoline sign—gas has +went up two cents a gallon more.” + </p> +<p> +Miss Plummer was sorting mail when I appeared at her wicket. She was one +of those elderly, spinsterish-looking, kittenish females who seem in an +intense state of surprise all the time. Her eyebrows arched like croquet +wickets and her mouth made O's before she uttered them. +</p> +<p> +“Name, please?” she said twitteringly. +</p> +<p> +I told her. +</p> +<p> +“Ah,” she said in the thrilled tone of one who is watching a Fourth of +July skyrocket explode in midair. The news seemed to please her. +</p> +<p> +“And the initials, please?” + </p> +<p> +“The initials are of no consequence. I do not expect any mail,” I said. “I +want merely to ask you a question.” + </p> +<p> +“Indeed!” she said coyly. She said it as though I had just given her a +handsome remembrance, and she cocked her head on one side like a bird—like +a hen-bird. +</p> +<p> +“I hate to trouble you,” I went on, “but I have experienced some +difficulty in making your townspeople understand me. I am looking for a +certain kind of farm—a farm of an abandoned character.” At once I +saw I had made a mistake. +</p> +<p> +“You do not get my meaning,” I said hastily. “I refer to a farm that has +been deserted, closed up, shut down—in short, abandoned. I trust I +make myself plain.” + </p> +<p> +She was still suffering from shock, however. She gave me a wounded-fawn +glance and averted her burning face. +</p> +<p> +“The Prewitt property might suit your purposes—whatever they may +be,” she said coldly over her shoulder. “Mr. Jabez Pickerel, of Pickerel +& Pike, real-estate dealers, on the first corner above, will doubtless +give you the desired information. He has charge of the Prewitt property.” + </p> +<p> +At last, I said to myself as I turned away, I was on the right track. Mr. +Pickerel rose as I entered his place of business. He was a short, square +man, with a brisk manner and a roving eye. +</p> +<p> +“I have been directed to you,” I began. He seized my hand and began +shaking it warmly. “I have been told,” I continued, “that you have charge +of the old Prewitt farm somewhere near here; and as I am in the market for +an aban-” I got no farther than that. +</p> +<p> +“In one minute,” he shouted explosively—“in just one minute!” + </p> +<p> +Still clutching me by the hand, he rushed me pell-mell out of the place. +At the curbing stood a long, low, rakish racing-model roadster, looking +something like a high-powered projectile and something like an enlarged +tailor's goose. Leaping into this machine at one bound, he dragged me up +into the seat beside him and threw on the power. Instantly we were +streaking away at a perfectly appalling rate of speed—fully +forty-five to fifty-five miles an hour I should say. You never saw +anything so sudden in your life. It was exactly like a kidnaping. It was +only by the exercise of great self-control that I restrained myself from +screaming for help. I had the feeling that I was being abducted—for +what purpose I knew not. +</p> +<p> +As we spun round a corner on two wheels, spraying up a long furrow of +dust, the same as shown in pictures of the chariot race in Ben-Hur, a man +with a watch in his hand and wearing a badge—a constable, I think—ran +out of a house that had a magistrate's sign over it and threw up his hand +authoritatively, as though to stop us; but my companion yelled something +the purport of which I could not distinguish and the constable fell back. +Glancing rearward over my shoulder I saw him halting another car bearing a +New York license that did not appear to be going half so fast as we were. +</p> +<p> +In another second we were out of town, tearing along a country highway. +Evidently sensing the alarm expressed by my tense face and strained +posture, this man Pickerel began saying something in what was evidently +intended to be a reassuring tone; but such was the roaring of the car that +I could distinguish only broken fragments of his speech. I caught the +words “unparalleled opportunity,” repeated several times—the term +appeared to be a favorite of his—and “marvelous proposition.” + Possibly I was not listening very closely anyhow, my mind being otherwise +engaged. For one thing I was surmising in a general sort of way upon the +old theory of the result when the irresistible force encounters the +immovable object. I was wondering how long it would be before we hit +something solid and whether it would be possible afterward to tell us +apart. His straw hat also made me wonder. I had mine clutched in both +hands and even then it fluttered against my bosom like a captive bird, but +his stayed put. I think yet he must have had threads cut in his head to +match the convolutions of the straw and screwed his hat on, like a nut on +an axle. +</p> +<p> +I have a confused recollection of rushing with the speed of the tornado +through rows of trees; of leaping from the crest of one small hill to the +crest of the next small hill; of passing a truck patch with such velocity +that the lettuce and tomatoes and other things all seemed to merge +together in a manner suggestive of a well-mixed vegetable salad. +</p> +<p> +Then we swung off the main road in between the huge brick columns of an +ornate gateway that stood alone, with no fence in connection. We bumpily +traversed a rutted stretch of cleared land; and then with a jar and a jolt +we came to a pause in what appeared to be a wide and barren expanse. +</p> +<p> +As my heart began to throb with slightly less violence I looked about me +for the abandoned farmhouse. I had conceived that it would be white with +green blinds and that it would stand among trees. It was not in sight; +neither were the trees. The entire landscape presented an aspect that was +indeed remarkable. Small numbered stakes, planted in double lines at +regular intervals, so as to form aisles, stretched away from us in every +direction. Also there were twin rows of slender sticks planted in the +earth in a sort of geometric pattern. Some were the size of switches. +Others were almost as large as umbrella handles and had sprouted slightly. +A short distance away an Italian was steering a dirtscraper attached to a +languid mule along a sort of dim roadway. There were no other living +creatures in sight. Right at my feet were two painted and lettered boards +affixed at cross angles to a wooden upright. The legend on one of these +boards was: Grand Concourse. The inscription on the other read: Nineteenth +Avenue West. Repressing a gasp, I opened my mouth to speak. +</p> +<p> +“Ahem!” I said. “There has been some mistake—” + </p> +<p> +“There can be no mistake!” he shouted enthusiastically. “The only mistake +possible is not to take advantage of this magnificent opportunity while it +is yet possible to do so. Just observe that view!” He waved his arm in the +general direction of the horizon from northwest to southeast. “Breathe +this air! As a personal favor to me just breathe a little of this air!” He +inhaled deeply himself as though to show me how, and I followed suit, +because after that ride I needed to catch up with my regular breathing. +</p> +<p> +“Thank you!” I said gratefully when I had finished breathing. “But how +about——” + </p> +<p> +“Quite right!” he cried, beaming upon me admiringly. “Quite right! I don't +blame you. You have a right to know all the details. As a business man you +should ask that question. You were about to say: But how about the train +service? Ah, there spoke the true business man, the careful investor! +Twenty fast trains a day each way—twenty, sir! Remember! And as for +accessibility—well, accessibility is simply no name for it! Only two +or three minutes from the station. You saw how long it took us to get here +to-day? Well, then, what more could you ask? Right here,” he went on, +pointing, “is the country club—a magnificent thing!” + </p> +<p> +I looked, but I didn't see anything except a hole in the ground about +fifty feet from us. +</p> +<p> +“Where?” I asked. “I don't see it.” + </p> +<p> +“Well,” he said, “this is where it is going to be. You automatically +become a member of the country club; in fact, you are as good as a member +now! And right up there at the corner of Lincoln Boulevard and Washington +Parkway, where that scraper is, is the public library—the site for +it! You'll be crazy about the public library! When we get back I'll let +you run over the plans for the public library while I'm fixing up the +papers. Oh, 'my friend, how glad I am you came while there was yet time!” + </p> +<p> +I breasted the roaring torrent of his pouring language. +</p> +<p> +“One minute,” I begged of him—“One minute, if you please! I am +obliged to you for the interest you take in me, a mere stranger to you; +but there has been a misunderstanding. I wanted to see the Prewitt place.” + </p> +<p> +“This is the Prewitt place,” he said. +</p> +<p> +“Yes,” I said; “but where is the house? And why all this—why all +these-” I indicated by a wave of my hand what I meant. +</p> +<p> +“Naturally,” he explained, “the house is no longer here. We tore it away—it +was old; whereas everything here will be new, modern and up-to-date. This +is—or was—the Prewitt place, now better known as Homecrest +Heights, the Development Ideal!” Having begun to capitalize his words, he +continued to do so. “The Perfect Addition! The Suburb Superb! Away From +the City's Dust and Heat! Away From Its Glamor and Clamor! Into the Open! +Into the Great Out-of-Doors! Back to the Soil! Villa Plots on Easy Terms! +You Furnish the Birds, We Furnish the Nest! The Place For a Business Man +to Rear His Family! You Are Married? You Have a Wife? You Have Little +Ones?” + </p> +<p> +“Yes,” I said, “one of each—one wife and one little one.” + </p> +<p> +“Ah!” he cried gladly. “One Little One—How Sweet! You Love Your +Little One—Ah, Yes! Yes! You Desire to Give Your Little One a +Chance? You Would Give Her Congenial Surroundings—Refined +Surroundings? You Would Inculcate in Her While Young the Love of Nature?” + He put an entire sentence into capitals now: “Give Your Little One a +Chance! That is All I Ask of You!” + </p> +<p> +He had me by both lapels. I thought he was going to kneel to me in +pleading. I feared he might kiss me. I raised him to his feet. Then his +manner changed—it became domineering, hectoring, almost threatening. +</p> +<p> +I will pass briefly over the events of the succeeding hour, including our +return to his lair or office. Accounts of battles where all the losses +fall upon one side are rarely interesting to read about anyway. Suffice it +to say that at the last minute I was saved. It was a desperate struggle +though. I had offered the utmost resistance at first, but he would surely +have had his way with me—only that a train pulled in bound for the +city just as he was showing me, as party of the first part, where I was to +sign my name on the dotted line A. Even then, weakened and worn as I was, +I should probably not have succeeded in beating him off if he had not been +hampered by having a fountain pen in one hand and the documents in the +other. At the door he intercepted me; but I tackled him low about the body +and broke through and fled like a hunted roebuck, catching the last car +just as the relief train pulled out of the station. It was a close +squeeze, but I made it. The thwarted Mr. Pickerel wrote me regularly for +some months thereafter, making mention of My Little One in every letter; +but after a while I took to sending the letters back to him unopened, and +eventually he quit. +</p> +<p> +I reached home along toward evening. I was tired, but I was not +discouraged. I reported progress on the part of the committee on a +permanent site, but told my wife that in order to find exactly what we +wanted it would be necessary for us to leave the main-traveled paths. It +was now quite apparent to me that the abandoned farm-seeker who stuck too +closely to the railroad lines was bound to be thrown constantly in contact +with those false and feverish metropolitan influences which, radiating +from the city, have spread over the country like the spokes of a wheel or +an upas tree, or a jauga-naut, or something of that nature. The thing to +do was to get into an automobile and go away from the principal routes of +travel, into districts where the abandoned farms would naturally be more +numerous. +</p> +<p> +This solved one phase of the situation—we now knew definitely where +to go. The next problem was to decide upon some friend owning an +automobile. We fixed upon the Winsells. They are charming people! We are +devoted to the Winsells. They were very good friends of ours when they had +their small four-passenger car; but since they sold the old one and bought +a new forty-horse, seven-passenger car, they are so popular that it is +hard to get hold of them for holidays and week-ends. +</p> +<p> +Every Saturday—nearly—some one of their list of acquaintances +is calling them up to tell of a lovely spot he has just heard about, with +good roads all the way, both coming and going; but after a couple of +disappointments we caught them when they had an open date. Over the +telephone Winsell objected that he did not know anything about the roads +up in Connecticut, but I was able to reassure him promptly on that score. +I told him he need not worry about that—that I would buy the road +map myself. So on a fair Saturday morning we started. +</p> +<p> +The trip up through the extreme lower end of the state of New York was +delightful, being marred by only one or two small mishaps. There was the +trifling incident of a puncture, which delayed us slightly; but +fortunately the accident occurred at a point where there was a wonderful +view of the Croton Lakes, and while Winsell was taking off the old tire +and adjusting a new one we sat very comfortably in the car, enjoying +Nature's panorama. +</p> +<p> +It was a little later on when we hit a dog. It seemed to me that this dog +merely sailed, yowling, up into the air in a sort of long curve, but +Winsell insisted that the dog described a parabola. I am very glad that in +accidents of this character it is always the victims that describe the +parabola. I know I should be at a complete loss to describe one myself. +Unless it is something like the boomerang of the Australian aborigines I +do not even know what a parabola is. Nor did I dream until then that +Winsell understood the dog language. However, those are but technical +details. +</p> +<p> +After we crossed the state line we got lost several times; this was +because the country seemed to have a number of roads the road map omitted, +and the road map had many roads the country had left out. Eventually, +though, we came to a district of gently rolling hills, dotted at intervals +with those neat white-painted villages in which New England excels; and +between the villages at frequent intervals were farmhouses. Abandoned +ones, however, were rarer than we had been led to expect. Not only were +these farms visibly populated by persons who appeared to be permanently +attached to their respective localities, but at many of them things were +offered for sale—such as home-made pastry, souvenirs, fresh poultry, +antique furniture, brass door-knockers, milk and eggs, hand-painted +crockery, table board, garden truck, molasses taffy, laundry soap and +livestock. +</p> +<p> +At length, though, when our necks were quite sore from craning this way +and that on the watch for an abandoned farm that would suit us, we came to +a very attractive-looking place facing a lawn and flanked by an orchard. +There was a sign fastened to an elm tree alongside the fence. The sign +read: For Information Concerning This Property Inquire Within. +</p> +<p> +To Winsell I said: +</p> +<p> +“Stop here—this is without doubt the place we have been looking +for!” + </p> +<p> +Filled—my wife and I—with little thrills of anticipation, we +all got out. I opened the gate and entered the yard, followed by Winsell, +my wife and his wife. I was about halfway up the walk when a large dog +sprang into view, at the same time showing his teeth in rather an +intimidating way. To prevent an encounter with an animal that might be +hostile, I stepped nimbly behind the nearest tree. As I came round on the +other side of the tree there, to my surprise, was this dog face to face +with me. Still desiring to avoid a collision with him, I stepped back the +other way. Again I met the dog, which was now growling. The situation was +rapidly becoming embarrassing when a gentleman came out upon the porch and +called sharply to the dog. The dog, with apparent reluctance, retired +under the house and the gentleman invited us inside and asked us to be +seated. Glancing about his living room I noted that the furniture appeared +to be a trifle modern for our purposes; but, as I whispered to my wife, +you cannot expect to have everything to suit you at first. With the sweet +you must ever take the bitter—that I believe is true, though not an +original saying. +</p> +<p> +In opening the conversation with the strange gentleman I went in a +businesslike way direct to the point. +</p> +<p> +“You are the owner of these premises?” I asked. He bowed. “I take it,” I +then said, “that you are about to abandon this farm?” + </p> +<p> +“I beg your pardon?” he said, as though confused. +</p> +<p> +“I presume,” I explained, “that this is practically an abandoned farm.” + </p> +<p> +“Not exactly,” he said. “I'm here.” + </p> +<p> +“Yes, yes; quite so,” I said, speaking perhaps a trifle impatiently. “But +you are thinking of going away from it, aren't you?” + </p> +<p> +“Yes,” he admitted; “I am.” + </p> +<p> +“Now,” I said, “we are getting round to the real situation. What are you +asking for this place?” + </p> +<p> +“Eighteen hundred,” he stated. “There are ninety acres of land that go +with the house and the house itself is in very good order.” + </p> +<p> +I considered for a moment. None of the abandoned farms I had ever read +about sold for so much as eighteen hundred dollars. Still, I reflected, +there might have been a recent bull movement; there had certainly been +much publicity upon the subject. Before committing myself, I glanced at my +wife. Her expression betokened acquiescence. +</p> +<p> +“That figure,” I said diplomatically, “was somewhat in excess of what I +was originally prepared to pay; still, the house seems roomy and, as you +were saying, there are ninety acres. The furniture and equipment go with +the place, I presume?” + </p> +<p> +“Naturally,” he answered. “That is the customary arrangement.” + </p> +<p> +“And would you be prepared to give possession immediately?” + </p> +<p> +“Immediately,” he responded. +</p> +<p> +I began to feel enthusiasm. By the look on my wife's face I could tell +that she was enthused, too. +</p> +<p> +“If we come to terms,” I said, “and everything proves satisfactory, I +suppose you could arrange to have the deed made out at once?” + </p> +<p> +“The deed?” he said blankly. “You mean the lease?” + </p> +<p> +“The lease?” I said blankly. “You mean the deed?” + </p> +<p> +“The deed?” he said blankly. “You mean the lease?” + </p> +<p> +“The lease, indeed,” said my wife. “You mean——” + </p> +<p> +I broke in here. Apparently we were all getting the habit. +</p> +<p> +“Let us be perfectly frank in this matter,” I said. “Let us dispense with +these evasive and dilatory tactics. You want eighteen hundred dollars for +this place, furnished?” + </p> +<p> +“Exactly,” he responded. “Eighteen hundred dollars for it from June to +October.” Then, noting the expressions of our faces, he continued +hurriedly: “A remarkably small figure considering what summer rentals are +in this section. Besides, this house is new. It costs a lot to reproduce +these old Colonial designs!” + </p> +<p> +I saw at once that we were but wasting our time in this person's company. +He had not the faintest conception of what we wanted. We came away. +Besides, as I remarked to the others after we were back in the car and on +our way again, this house-farm would never have suited us; the view from +it was nothing extra. I told Winsell to go deeper into the country until +we really struck the abandoned farm belt. +</p> +<p> +So we went farther and farther. After a while it was late afternoon and we +seemed to be lost again. My wife and Winsell's wife were tired; so we +dropped them at the next teahouse we passed. I believe it was the +eighteenth teahouse for the day. Winsell and I then continued on the quest +alone. Women know so little about business anyway that it is better, I +think, whenever possible, to conduct important matters without their +presence. It takes a masculine intellect to wrestle with these intricate +problems; and for some reason or other this problem was becoming more and +more complicated and intricate all the time. +</p> +<p> +On a long, deserted stretch of road, as the shadows were lengthening, we +overtook a native of a rural aspect plodding along alone. Just as we +passed him I was taken with an idea and I told Winsell to stop. I was +tired of trafficking with stupid villagers and avaricious land-grabbers. I +would deal with the peasantry direct. I would sound the yeoman heart—which +is honest and true and ever beats in accord with the best dictates of +human nature. +</p> +<p> +“My friend,” I said to him, “I am seeking an abandoned farm. Do you know +of many such in this vicinity?” + </p> +<p> +“How?” he asked. +</p> +<p> +I never got so tired of repeating a question in my life; nevertheless, for +this yokel's limited understanding, I repeated it again. +</p> +<p> +“Well,” he said at length, “whut with all these city fellers moving in +here to do gentleman-farming—whatsoever that may mean—farm +property has gone up until now it's wuth considerable more'n town +property, as a rule. I could scursely say I know of any of the kind of +farms you mention as laying round loose—no, wait a minute; I do +recollect a place. It's that shack up back of the country poor farm that +the supervisors used for a pest house the time the smallpox broke out. +That there place is consider'bly abandoned. You might try—” + </p> +<p> +In a stern tone of voice I bade Winsell to drive on and turn in at the +next farmhouse he came to. The time for trifling had passed. My mind was +fixed. My jaw was also set. I know, because I set it myself. And I have no +doubt there was a determined glint in my eye; in fact, I could feel the +glint reflected upon my cheek. +</p> +<p> +At the next farm Winsell turned in. We passed through a stone gateway and +rolled up a well-kept road toward a house we could see in glimpses through +the intervening trees. We skirted several rather neat flower beds, curved +round a greenhouse and came out on a stretch of lawn. I at once decided +that this place would do undoubtedly. There might be alterations to make, +but in the main the establishment would be satisfactory even though the +house, on closer inspection, proved to be larger than it had seemed when +seen from a distance. +</p> +<p> +On a signal from me Winsell halted at the front porch. Without a word I +stepped out. He followed. I mounted the steps, treading with great +firmness and decision, and rang the doorbell hard. A middle-aged person +dressed in black, with a high collar, opened the door. +</p> +<p> +“Are you the proprietor of this place?” I demanded without any preamble. +My patience was exhausted; I may have spoken sharply. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, no, sir,” he said, and I could tell by his accent he was English; +“the marster is out, sir.” + </p> +<p> +“I wish to see him,” I said, “on particular business—at once! At +once, you understand—it is important!” + </p> +<p> +“Perhaps you'd better come in, sir,” he said humbly. It was evident my +manner, which was, I may say, almost haughty, had impressed him deeply. +“If you will wait, sir, I'll have the marster called, sir. He's not far +away, sir.” + </p> +<p> +“Very good,” I replied. “Do so!” + </p> +<p> +He showed us into a large library and fussed about, offering drinks and +cigars and what-not. Winsell seemed somewhat perturbed by these +attentions, but I bade him remain perfectly calm and collected, adding +that I would do all the talking. +</p> +<p> +We took cigars—very good cigars they were. As they were not banded I +assumed they were home grown. I had always heard that Connecticut tobacco +was strong, but these specimens were very mild and pleasant. I had about +decided I should put in tobacco for private consumption and grow my own +cigars and cigarettes when the door opened, and a stout elderly man with +side whiskers entered the room. He was in golfing costume and was +breathing hard. +</p> +<p> +“As soon as I got your message I hurried over as fast as I could,” he +said. +</p> +<p> +“You need not apologize,” I replied; “we have not been kept waiting very +long.” + </p> +<p> +“I presume you come in regard to the traction matter?” he ventured. +</p> +<p> +“No,” I said, “not exactly. You own this place, I believe?” + </p> +<p> +“I do,” he said, staring at me. +</p> +<p> +“So far, so good,” I said. “Now, then, kindly tell me when you expect to +abandon it.” + </p> +<p> +He backed away from me a few feet, gaping. He opened his mouth and for a +few moments absent-mindedly left it in that condition. +</p> +<p> +“When do I expect to do what?” he inquired. “When,” I said, “do you expect +to abandon it?” He shook his head as though he had some marbles inside of +it and liked the rattling sound. +</p> +<p> +“I don't understand yet,” he said, puzzled. +</p> +<p> +“I will explain,” I said very patiently. “I wish to acquire by purchase or +otherwise one of the abandoned farms of this state. Not having been able +to find one that was already abandoned, though I believe them to be very +numerous, I am looking for one that is about to be abandoned. I wish, you +understand, to have the first call on it. Winsell”—I said in an +aside—“quit pulling at my coat-tail! Therefore,” I resumed, +readdressing the man with the side whiskers, “I ask you a plain question, +to wit: When do you expect to abandon this one? I expect a plain answer.” + </p> +<p> +He edged a few feet nearer an electric push button which was set in the +wall. He seemed flustered and distraught; in fact, almost apprehensive. +</p> +<p> +“May I inquire,” he said nervously, “how you got in here?” + </p> +<p> +“Your servant admitted us,” I said, with dignity. “Yes,” he said in a +soothing tone; “but did you come afoot—or how?” + </p> +<p> +“I drove here in a car,” I told him, though I couldn't see what difference +that made. +</p> +<p> +“Merciful Heavens!” he muttered. “They do not trust you—I mean you +do not drive the car yourself, do you?” + </p> +<p> +Here Winsell cut in. +</p> +<p> +“I drove the car,” he said. “I—I did not want to come, but he”—pointing +to me—“he insisted.” Winsell is by nature a groveling soul. His tone +was almost cringing. +</p> +<p> +“I see,” said the gentleman, wagging his head, “I see. Sad case—very +sad case! Young, too!” Then he faced me. “You will excuse me now,” he +said. “I wish to speak to my butler. I have just thought of several things +I wish to say to him. Now in regard to abandoning this place: I do not +expect to abandon this place just yet—probably not for some weeks or +possibly months. In case I should decide to abandon it sooner, if you will +leave your address with me I will communicate with you by letter at the +institution where you may chance to be stopping at the time. I trust this +will be satisfactory.” + </p> +<p> +He turned again to Winsell. +</p> +<p> +“Does your—ahem—friend care for flowers?” he asked. +</p> +<p> +“Yes,” said Winsell. “I think so.” + </p> +<p> +“Perhaps you might show him my flower gardens as you go away,” said the +side-whiskered man. “I have heard somewhere that flowers have a very +soothing effect sometimes in such cases—or it may have been music. I +have spent thirty thousand dollars beautifying these grounds and I am +really very proud of them. Show him the flowers by all means—you +might even let him pick a few if it will humor him.” + </p> +<p> +I started to speak, but he was gone. In the distance somewhere I heard a +door slam. +</p> +<p> +Under the circumstances there was nothing for us to do except to come +away. Originally I did not intend to make public mention of this incident, +preferring to dismiss the entire thing from my mind; but, inasmuch as +Winsell has seen fit to circulate a perverted and needlessly exaggerated +version of it among our circle of friends, I feel that the exact +circumstances should be properly set forth. +</p> +<p> +It was a late hour when we rejoined our wives. This was due to Winsel's +stupidity in forgetting the route we had traversed after parting from +them; in fact, it was nearly midnight before he found his way back to the +teahouse where we left them. The teahouse had been closed for some hours +then and our wives were sitting in the dark on the teahouse porch waiting +for us. Really, I could not blame them for scolding Winsell; but they +displayed an unwarranted peevishness toward me. My wife's display of +temper was really the last straw. It was that, taken in connection with +certain other circumstances, which clinched my growing resolution to let +the whole project slide into oblivion. I woke her up and in so many words +told her so on the way home. We arrived there shortly after daylight of +the following morning. +</p> +<p> +So, as I said at the outset, we gave up our purpose of buying an abandoned +farm and moved into a flat on the upper west side. +</p> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER III. THREE YEARS ELAPSE +</h2> +<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> wound up the last preceding chapter of this chronicle with the statement +that we had definitely given up all hope of owning an abandoned farm. +After an interval of three years the time has now come to recant and to +make explanation, touching on our change of heart and resolution. For at +this writing I am an abandoned farmer of the most pronounced type and, +with the assistance of my family, am doing my level best to convert or, as +it were, evangelize one of the most thoroughly abandoned farms in the +entire United States. By the same token we are also members in good +standing of the Westchester County—New York—Despair +Association. +</p> +<p> +The Westchester County Despair Association was founded by George Creel, +who is one of our neighbors. In addition to being its founder he is its +perpetual president. This association has a large and steadily growing +membership. Any citybred person who moves up here among the rolling hills +of our section with intent to get back to Nature, and who, in pursuance of +that most laudable aim, encounters the various vicissitudes and the varied +misfortunes which, it would seem, invariably do befall the amateur +husbandman, is eligible to join the ranks. +</p> +<p> +If he builds a fine silo and promptly it burns down on him, as so +frequently happens—silos appear to have a habit of deliberately +going out of their way in order to catch afire—he joins +automatically. If his new swimming pool won't hold water, or his new road +won't hold anything else; if his hired help all quit on him in the busy +season; if the spring freshets flood his cellar; if his springs go dry in +August; if his horses succumb to one of those fatal diseases that are so +popular among expensive horses; if his prize Jersey cow chokes on a +turnip; if his blooded hens are so busy dying they have no time to give to +laying—why, then, under any one or more of these heads he is +welcomed into the fold. I may state in passing that, after an experimental +test of less than six months of country life, we are eligible on several +counts. However, I shall refer to those details later. +</p> +<p> +Up until last spring we had been living in the city for twelve years, with +a slice of about four years out of the middle, during which we lived in +one of the most suburban of suburbs. First we tried the city, then the +suburb, then the city again; and the final upshot was, we decided that +neither city nor suburb would do for us. In the suburb there was the daily +commuting to be considered; besides, the suburb was neither city nor +country, but a commingling of the drawbacks of the city and the country, +with not many of the advantages of either. And the city was the city of +New York. +</p> +<p> +Ours, I am sure, had been the common experience of the majority of those +who move to New York from smaller communities—the experience of +practically all except the group from which is recruited the confirmed and +incurable New Yorker. After you move to New York it takes several months +to rid you of homesickness for the place you have left; this period over, +it takes several years usually to cure you of the lure of the city and +restore to you the longing for the simpler and saner things. +</p> +<p> +To be sure, there is the exception. When I add this qualification I have +in mind the man who wearies not of spending his evenings from eight-thirty +until eleven at a tired-business-man's show; of eating +tired-business-man's lunch in a lobsteria on the Great White Way from +eleven-thirty p. m. until closing time; of having his toes trodden upon by +other tired business men at the afternoon-dancing parlor; of twice a day, +or oftener, being packed in with countless fellow tired business men in +the tired cars of the tired Subway—I have him in mind, also the +woman who is his ordained mate. +</p> +<p> +But, for the run of us, life in the city, within a flat, eventually gets +upon our nerves; and life within the city, outside the flat, gets upon our +nerves to an even greater extent. The main trouble about New York is not +that it contains six million people, but that practically all of them are +constantly engaged in going somewhere in such a hurry. Nearly always the +place where they are going lies in the opposite direction from the place +where you are going. There is where the rub comes, and sooner or later it +rubs the nap off your disposition. +</p> +<p> +The everlasting shooting of the human rapids, the everlasting portages +about the living whirlpools, the everlasting bucking of the human cross +currents—these are the things that, in due time, turn the thoughts +of the sojourner to mental pictures of peaceful fields and burdened +orchards, and kindfaced cows standing knee-deep in purling brooks, and +bosky dells and sylvan glades. At any rate, so our thoughts turned. +</p> +<p> +Then, too, a great many of our friends were moving to the country to live, +or had already moved to the country to live. We spent week-ends at their +houses; we went on house parties as their guests. We heard them babble of +the excitement of raising things on the land. We thought they meant garden +truck. How were we to know they also meant mortgages? At the time it did +not impress us as a fact worthy of being regarded as significant that we +should find a different set of servants on the premises almost every time +we went to visit one of these families. +</p> +<p> +What fascinated us was the presence of fresh vegetables upon the table—not +the car-sick, shopworn, wilted vegetables of the city markets, but really +fresh vegetables; the new-laid eggs—after eating the other kind so +long we knew they were new-laid without being told; the flower beds +outside and the great bouquets of flowers inside the house; the milk that +had come from a cow and not from a milkman; the home-made butter; the rich +cream—and all. +</p> +<p> +We heard their tales of rising at daybreak and going forth to pick from +the vines the platter of breakfast berries, still beaded with the dew. +They got up at daybreak, they said, especially on account of the berry +picking and the beauties of the sunrise. Having formerly been city +dwellers, they had sometimes stayed up for a sunrise; but never until now +had they got up for one. The novelty appealed to them tremendously and +they never tired of talking of it. +</p> +<p> +In the country—so they told us—you never needed an alarm clock +to rouse you at dawn. Subsequently, by personal experience, I found this +to be true. You never need an alarm clock—if you keep chickens. You +may not go to bed with the chickens, but you get up with them, unless you +are a remarkably sound sleeper. When it comes to rousing the owner, from +slumber before the sun shows, the big red rooster and the little brown hen +are more dependable than any alarm clock ever assembled. You might forget +to wind the alarm clock. The big red rooster winds himself. You might +forget to set the alarm clock. The little brown hen does her own setting; +and even in cases where she doesn't, she likes to wake up about +four-forty-five and converse about her intentions in the matter in a +shrill and penetrating tone of voice. +</p> +<p> +It had been so long since I had lived in the country I had forgotten about +the early-rising habits of barnyard fowl. I am an expert on the subject +now. Only this morning there was a rooster suffering from hay fever or a +touch of catarrh, or something that made him quite hoarse; and he strolled +up from the chicken house to a point directly beneath my bedroom window, +just as the first pink streaks of the new day were painting the eastern +skies, and spent fully half an hour there clearing his throat. +</p> +<p> +But I am getting ahead of my story. More and more we found the lure of the +country was enmeshing our fancies. After each trip to the country we went +back to town to find that, in our absence, the flat had somehow grown more +stuffy and more crowded; that the streets had become more noisy and more +congested. And the outcome of it with us was as the outcome has been with +so many hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of others. We +voted to go to the country to live. +</p> +<p> +Having reached the decision, the next thing was to decide on the site and +the setting for the great adventure. We unanimously set our faces against +New Jersey, mainly because, to get from New Jersey over to New York and +back again, you must take either the ferry or the tube; and if there was +one thing on earth that we cared less for than the ferry it was the tube. +To us it seemed that most of the desirable parts of Long Island were +already preëmpted by persons of great wealth, living, so we gathered, in a +state of discriminating aloofness and, as a general rule, avoiding social +association with families in the humbler walks of life. Round New York the +rich cannot be too careful—and seldom are. Most of them are +suffering from nervous culture anyhow. +</p> +<p> +Land in the lower counties of Connecticut, along the Sound, was too +expensive for us to consider moving up there. But there remained what +seemed to us then and what seems to us yet the most wonderful spot for +country homes of persons in moderate circumstances anywhere within the New +York zone, or anywhere else, for that matter—the hill country of the +northern part of Westchester County, far enough back from the Hudson River +to avoid the justly famous Hudson River glare in the summer, and close +enough to it to enable a dweller to enjoy the Hudson River breezes and the +incomparable Hudson River scenery. +</p> +<p> +Besides, a lot of our friends lived there. There was quite a colony of +them scattered over a belt of territory that intervened between the +magnificent estates of the multi-millionaires to the southward and the +real farming country beyond the Croton Lakes, up the valley. By a process +of elimination we had now settled upon the neighborhood where we meant to +live. The task of finding a suitable location in this particular area +would be an easy one, we thought. +</p> +<p> +I do not know how the news of this intention spread. We told only a few +persons of our purpose. But spread it did, and with miraculous swiftness. +Overnight almost, we began to hear from real-estate agents having other +people's property to sell and from real-estate owners having their own +property to sell. They reached us by mail, by telephone, by messenger, and +in person. It was a perfect revelation to learn that so many perfectly +situated, perfectly appointed country places, for one reason or another, +were to be had for such remarkable figures. Indeed, when we heard the +actual amounts the figures were more than remarkable—they were +absolutely startling. I am convinced that nothing is so easy to buy as a +country place and nothing is so hard to sell. This observation is based +upon our own experiences on the buying side and on the experiences of some +of my acquaintances who want to sell—and who are taking it out in +wanting. +</p> +<p> +In addition to agents and owners, there came also road builders, well +diggers, interior decorators, landscape gardeners, general contractors, an +architect or so, agents for nurseries, tree-mending experts, professional +foresters, persons desiring to be superintendent of our country place, +persons wishful of taking care of our livestock for us—a whole shoal +of them. It booted us nothing to explain that we had not yet bought a +place; that we had not even looked at a place with the prospect of buying. +Almost without exception these callers were willing to sit down with me +and use up hours of my time telling me how well qualified they were to +deliver the goods as soon as I had bought land, or even before I had +bought it. +</p> +<p> +From the ruck of them as they came avalanching down upon us two or three +faces and individualities stand out. There was, for example, the chimney +expert. That was what he called himself—a chimney expert. His +specialty was constructing chimneys that were guaranteed against smoking, +and curing chimneys, built by others, which had contracted the vice. The +circumstance of our not having any chimneys of any variety at the moment +did not halt him when I had stated that fact to him. He had already +removed his hat and overcoat and taken a seat in my study, and he +continued to remain right there. He seemed comfortable; in fact, I believe +he said he was comfortable. +</p> +<p> +From chimneys he branched out into a general conversation with me upon the +topics of the day. +</p> +<p> +In my time I have met persons who knew less about a wider range of +subjects than he did, but they had superior advantages over him. Some had +traveled about over the world, picking up misinformation; some had been +educated into a broad and comprehensive ignorance. But here was a +self-taught ignoramus—one, you might say, who had made himself what +he was. He may have known all about the habits and shortcomings of flues; +but, once you let him out of a chimney, he was adrift on an uncharted sea +of mispronounced names, misstated facts and faulty dates. +</p> +<p> +We discussed the war—or, rather, he erroneously discussed it. We +discussed politics and first one thing and then another, until finally the +talk worked its way round to literature; and then it was he told me I was +one of his favorite authors. “Well,” I said to myself, at that, “this +person may be shy in some of his departments, but he's all right in +others.” And then, aloud, I told him that he interested me and asked him +to go on. +</p> +<p> +“Yes, sir,” he continued; “I don't care what anybody says, you certainly +did write one mighty funny book, anyhow. You've wrote some books that I +didn't keer so much for; but this here book, ef it's give me one laugh +it's give me a thousand! I can come in dead tired out and pick it up and +read a page—yes, read only two or three lines sometimes—and +just natchelly bust my sides. How you ever come to think up all them +comical sayings I don't, for the life of me, see! I wonder how these other +fellers that calls themselves humorists have got the nerve to keep on +tryin' to write when they read that book of yours.” + </p> +<p> +“What did you say the name of this particular book was?” I asked, warming +to the man in spite of myself. +</p> +<p> +“It's called Fables in Slang,” he said. +</p> +<p> +I did not undeceive him. He had spoiled my day for me. Why should I spoil +his? +</p> +<p> +Then, there was the persistent nursery-man's agent, with the teeth. He was +the most toothsome being I ever saw. The moment he came in, the thought +occurred to me that in his youth somebody had put tooth powders into his +coffee. He may not have had any more teeth than some people have, but he +had a way of presenting his when he smiled or when he spoke, or even when +his face was in repose, which gave him the effect of being practically all +teeth. Aside from his teeth, the most noticeable thing about him was his +persistence. I began protesting that it would be but a waste of his time +and mine to take up the subject of fruit and shade trees and shrubbery, +because, even though I might care to invest in his lines, I had at present +no soil in which to plant them. But he seemed to regard this as a mere +technicality on my part, and before I was anywhere near done with what I +meant to say to him he had one arm round me and was filling my lap and my +arms and my desk-top with catalogues, price lists, illustrations in color, +order slips, and other literature dealing with the products of the house +he represented. +</p> +<p> +I did my feeble best to fight him off; but it was of no use. He just +naturally surrounded me. Inside of three minutes he had me as thoroughly +mined, flanked and invested as though he'd been Grant and I'd been +Richmond. I could tell he was prepared to stay right on until I +capitulated. +</p> +<p> +So, in order for me to be able to live my own life, it became necessary to +give him an order. I made it as small an order as possible, because, as I +have just said and as I told him repeatedly, I had no place in which to +plant the things I bought of him, and could not tell when I should have a +place in which to plant them. That petty detail did not concern him in the +least. He promised to postpone delivery until I had taken title to some +land somewhere; and then he smiled his all-ivory smile and released me +from captivity, and took his departure. +</p> +<p> +Two months later, when we had joined the landed classes, the consignment +arrived—peach, pear, quince, cherry and apple. I was quite shocked +at the appearance of the various items when we undid the wrappings. The +pictures from which I had made my selections showed splendid trees, thick +with foliage and laden with the most delicious fruit imaginable. But here, +seemingly, was merely a collection of golf clubs in a crude and unfinished +state—that is to say, they were about the right length and the right +thickness to make golf clubs, but were unfinished to the extent that they +had small tentacles or roots adhering to them at their butt ends. +</p> +<p> +However, our gardener—we had acquired a gardener by then—was +of the opinion that they might develop into something. Having advanced +this exceedingly sanguine and optimistic belief, he took out a +pocket-knife and further maimed the poor little things by pruning off +certain minute sprouts or nubs or sprigs that grew upon them; and then he +stuck them in the earth. Nevertheless, they grew. At this hour they are +still growing, and in time I think they may bear fruit. As a promise of +future productivity they bore leaves during the summer—not many +leaves, but still enough leaves to keep them from looking so much like +walking sticks, and just enough leaves to nourish certain varieties of +worms. +</p> +<p> +I sincerely trust the reader will not think I have been exaggerating in +detailing my dealings with the artificers, agents and solicitors who +descended upon us when the hue and cry—personally I have never seen +a hue, nor, to the best of my knowledge, have I ever heard one; but it is +customary to speak of it in connection with a cry and I do so—when, +as I say, the presumable hue and the indubitable cry were raised in regard +to our ambition to own a country place. Believe me, I am but telling the +plain, unvarnished truth. And now we come to the home-seeking enterprise: +</p> +<p> +Sometimes alone, but more frequently in the company of friends, we toured +Westchester, its main highways and its back roads, its nooks and its +corners, until we felt that we knew its topography much better than many +born and reared in it. Reason totters on her throne when confronted with +the task of trying to remember how many places we looked at—places +done, places overdone, places underdone, and places undone. Wherever we +went, though, one of two baffling situations invariably arose: If we liked +a place the price for that place uniformly would be out of our financial +reach. If the price were within our reach the place failed to satisfy our +desires. +</p> +<p> +After weeks of questing about, we did almost close for one estate. It was +an estate where a rich man, who made his money in town and spent it in the +country, had invested a fortune in apple trees. The trees were there—several +thousand of them; but they were all such young trees. It would be several +years before they would begin to bear, and meantime the services of a +small army of men would be required to care for the orchards and prune +them, and spray them, and coddle them, and chase insects away from them. I +calculated that if we bought this place it would cost me about seven +thousand dollars a year for five years ahead in order to enjoy three weeks +of pink-and-white beauty in the blossoming time each spring. +</p> +<p> +Besides, it occurred to me that by the time the trees did begin to bear +plentifully the fashionable folk in New York might quit eating apples; in +which case everybody else would undoubtedly follow suit and quit eating +them too. Ours is a fickle race, as witness the passing of the vogue for +iron dogs on front lawns, and for cut-glass vinegar cruets on the dinner +table; and a lot of other things, fashionable once but unfashionable now. +</p> +<p> +Also, the house stood on a bluff directly overlooking the river, with the +tracks of the New York Central in plain view and trains constantly +ski-hooting by. At the time of our inspection of the premises, long +restless strings of freight cars were backing in and out of sidings not +more than a quarter of a mile away. We were prepared, after we had moved +to the country, to rise with the skylarks, but we could not see the +advantage to be derived from rising with the switch engines. Switch +engines are notorious for keeping early hours; or possibly the engineers +suffer from insomnia. +</p> +<p> +At length we decided to buy an undeveloped tract and do our own +developing. In pursuance of this altered plan we climbed craggy heights +with fine views to be had from their crests, but with no water anywhere +near; and we waded through marshy meadows, where there was any amount of +water but no views. This was discouraging; but we persevered, and +eventually perseverance found its reward. Thanks to some kindly souls who +guided us to it, we found what we thought we wanted. +</p> +<p> +We found a sixty-acre tract on a fine road less than a mile and a half +from one of the best towns in the lower Hudson Valley. It combined +accessibility with privacy; for after you quitted the cleared lands at the +front of the property, and entered the woodland at the back, you were +instantly in a stretch of timber which by rights belonged in the +Adirondacks. About a third of the land was cleared—or, rather, had +been cleared once upon a time. The rest was virgin forest running up to +the comb of a little mountain, from the top of which you might see, spread +out before you and below you, a panorama with a sweep of perhaps forty +miles round three sides of the horizon. +</p> +<p> +There were dells, glades, steep bluffs and rolling stretches of fallow +land; there were seven springs on the place; there was a cloven rift in +the hill with a fine little valley at the bottom of it, and the first time +I clambered up its slope from the bottom I flushed a big cock grouse that +went booming away through the underbrush with a noise like a burst of baby +thunder. That settled it for me. All my life I have been trying to kill a +grouse on the wing, and here was a target right on the premises. Next day +we signed the papers and paid over the binder money. We were landowners. +Presently we had a deed in the safe-deposit box and some notes in the bank +to prove it. +</p> +<p> +Over most of our friends we had one advantage. They had taken +old-fashioned farms and made them over into modern country places. But +once upon a time, sixty or seventy years back, the place of which we were +now the proud proprietors had been the property of a man of means and good +taste, a college professor; and, by the somewhat primitive standards of +those days, it had been an estate of considerable pretensions. +</p> +<p> +This gentleman had done things of which we were now the legatees. For +example, he had spared the fine big trees, which grew about the dooryard +of his house; and when he had cleared the tillable acres he had left in +them here and there little thickets and little rocky copses which stood up +like islands from the green expanses of his meadows. The pioneer American +farmer's idea of a tree in a field or on a lawn was something that could +be cut down right away. Also the original owner had planted orchards of +apples and groves of cherries; and he had thrown up stout stone walls, +which still stood in fair order. +</p> +<p> +But—alas!—he had been dead for more than forty years. And +during most of those forty years his estate had been in possession of an +absentee landlord, a woman, who allowed a squatter to live on the +property, rent free, upon one unusual condition—namely, that he +repair nothing, change nothing, improve nothing, and, except for the patch +where he grew his garden truck, till no land. As well as might be judged +by the present conditions, the squatter had lived up to the contract. If a +windowpane was smashed he stuffed up the orifice with rags; if a roof +broke away he patched the hole with scraps of tarred paper; if a tree fell +its molder-ing trunk stayed where it lay; if brambles sprang up they +flourished unvexed by bush hook or pruning blade. +</p> +<p> +Buried in this wilderness was an old frame residence, slanting tipsily on +its rotted sills; and the cellar under it was a noisome damp hole, half +filled with stones that had dropped out of the tottering foundation walls. +There was a farmer's cottage which from decay and neglect seemed ready to +topple over; likewise the remains of a cow barn, where no self-respecting +cow would voluntarily spend a night; the moldy ruins of a coach house, an +ice house and a chicken house; and flanking these, piles of broken, +crumbling boards to mark the sites of sundry cribs and sheds. +</p> +<p> +The barn alone had resisted neglect and the gnawing tooth of time. This +was because it had been built in the time when barns were built to stay. +It had big, hand-hewn oak sticks for its beams and rafters and sills; and +though its roof was a lacework of rotted shingles and its sides were full +of gaps to let the weather in, its frame was as solid and enduring as on +the day when it was finished. This, in short and in fine, was what we in +our ignorance had acquired. To us it was a splendid asset. Persons who +knew more than we did might have called it a liability. +</p> +<p> +All our friends, though, were most sanguine and most cheerful regarding +the prospect. Jauntily and with few words they dismissed the difficulties +of the prospect that faced us; and with the same jauntiness we, also, +dismissed them. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, you won't have so very much to do!” I hear them saying. “To be sure, +there's a road to be built—not over a quarter of a mile of road, +exclusive of the turnround at your garage—when you've built your +garage—and the turn in front of your house—when you've built +your house. It shouldn't take you long to clear up the fields and get them +under cultivation. All you'll have to do there is pick the loose stones +off of them and plow the land up, and harrow it and grade it in places, +and spread a few hundred wagonloads of fertilizer; and then sow your grass +seed. That old horsepond yonder will make you a perfectly lovely swimming +pool, once you've cleaned it out and deepened it at this end, and built +retaining walls round it, and put in a concrete basin, and waterproofed +the sides and bottom. You must have a swimming pool by all means! +</p> +<p> +“And then, by running a hundred-foot dam across that low place in the +valley you can have a wonderful little lake. You surely must have a lake +to go with the swimming pool! Then, when you've dug your artesian well, +you can couple up all your springs for an emergency supply. You know you +can easily pipe the spring water into a tank and conserve it there. Then +you'll have all the water you possibly can need—except, of course, +in very dry weather in mid-summer. +</p> +<p> +“And, after that, when you've torn the old house down and put up your new +house, and built your barn and your stable, and your farmer's cottage and +your ice house, and your greenhouses, and your corn-crib, and your +tool-shed, and your tennis court, and laid out some terraces up on that +hillside yonder, and planned out your flower gardens and your vegetable +garden, and your potato patch and your corn patch, and stuck up your +chicken runs, and bought your work stock and your cows and chickens and +things—oh, yes, and your kennels, if you are going in for dogs—No? +All right, then; never mind the kennels. Anyhow, when you've done those +things and set out your shrubs and made your rose beds and planted your +grapevines, you'll be all ready just to move right in and settle down and +enjoy yourselves.” + </p> +<p> +I do not mean that all of these suggestions came at once. As here +enumerated they represent the combined fruitage of several conversations +on the subject. We listened attentively, making notes of the various +notions for our comfort and satisfaction as they occurred to others. If +any one had advanced the idea that we should install a private race track, +and lay out nine holes, say, of a private golf course, we should have +agreed to those items too. These things do sound so easy when you are +talking them over and when the first splendid fever of land ownership is +upon you! +</p> +<p> +Had I but known then what I know now! These times, when, going along the +road, I pass a manure heap I am filled with envy of the plutocrat who owns +it, though, at the same time, deploring the vulgar ostentation that leads +him to spread his wealth before the view of the public. When I see a +masonry wall along the front of an estate I begin to make mental +calculations, for I understand now what that masonry costs, and know that +it is cheaper, in the long run, to have your walls erected by a lapidary +than by a union stonemason. +</p> +<p> +And as for a bluestone road—well, you, reader, may think bluestone +is but a simple thing and an inexpensive one. Just wait until you have had +handed to you the estimates on the cost of killing the nerve and cleaning +out the cavities and inserting the fillings, and putting in the falsework +and the bridgework, and the drains and the arches—and all! You might +think dentists are well paid for such jobs; but a professional road +contractor—I started to say road agent—makes any dentist look +a perfect piker. +</p> +<p> +And any time you feel you really must have a swimming pool that is all +your very own, take my advice and think twice. Think oftener than twice; +and then compromise on a neat little outdoor sitz bath that is all your +very own. +</p> +<p> +But the inner knowledge of these things was to come to us later. For the +time being, pending the letting of contracts, we were content to enjoy the +two most pleasurable sensations mortals may know—possession and +anticipation: the sense of the reality of present ownership and, coupled +with this, dreams of future creation and future achievement. We were on +the verge of making come true the treasured vision of months—we were +about to become abandoned farmers. +</p> +<p> +No being who is blessed with imagination can have any finer joy than this, +I think—the joy of proprietorship of a strip of the green footstool. +The soil you kick up when you walk over your acres is different soil from +that which you kick up on your neighbor's land—different because it +is yours. Another man's tree, another man's rock heap, is a simple tree or +a mere rock heap, as the case may be; and nothing more. But your tree and +your rock heap assume a peculiar value, a special interest, a unique and +individual picturesqueness. +</p> +<p> +And oh, the thrill that permeates your being when you see the first furrow +of brown earth turned up in your field, or the first shovel-load of sod +lifted from the spot where your home is to stand! And oh, the first walk +through the budding woods in the springtime! And the first spray of +trailing arbutus! And the first spray of trailing poison ivy! And the +first mortgage! And the first time you tread on one of those large slick +brown worms, designed, inside and out, like a chocolate éclair! +</p> +<p> +After all, it's the only life! But on the way to it there are pitfalls and +obstacles and setbacks, and steadily mounting monthly pay rolls. +</p> +<p> +As shall presently develop. +</p> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER IV. HAPPY DAYS FOR MAJOR GLOOM +</h2> +<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>oon after we moved to the country we became eligible to join the +Westchester County Despair Association, on account of an artesian well—or, +to be exact, on account of three artesian wells, complicated with several +springs. +</p> +<p> +I spoke some pages back of the Westchester County Despair Association, +which was founded by George Creel and which has a large membership in our +immediate section. As I stated then, any city-bred man who turns amateur +farmer and moves into our neighborhood, and who in developing his country +place has a streak of hard labor, is eligible to join this organization. +And sooner or later—but as a general thing sooner—all the +urbanites who settle up our way do join. Some day we shall be strong +enough to club in and elect our own county officers on a ticket pledged to +run a macadam highway past the estate of each member. +</p> +<p> +Our main claim to qualification was based upon the water question; and yet +at the outset it appeared to us that lack of water would be the very least +of our troubles. When we took title to our abandoned farm, and for the +first time explored the bramble-grown valley leading up from the proposed +site of our house to the woodland, we several times had to wade, and once +or twice thought we should have to swim. Why, we actually congratulated +ourselves upon having acquired riparian rights without paying for them. +</p> +<p> +This was in the springtime; and the springs along the haunches of the +hills upon either side of the little ravine were speaking in burbly +murmuring voices, like overflowing mouths, as they spilled forth their +accumulated store of the melted snows of the winter before; and the April +rainstorms had made a pond of every low place in the county. +</p> +<p> +In our ignorance we assumed that, since there was now plenty of water of +Nature's furnishing, there always would be plenty of water forthcoming +from the same prodigal source—more water than we could possibly ever +need unless we opened up a fresh-water bathing beach in the lower meadow +of our place. So we dug out and stoned up the uppermost spring, which +seemed to have the most generous vein of them all, and put in pipes. The +lay of the land and the laws of gravity did the rest, bringing the flow +downgrade in a gurgling comforting stream, which poured day and night +without cessation. +</p> +<p> +This detail having been attended to, we turned our attention to other +things. Goodness knows there were plenty of things requiring attention. I +figured at that period of our pioneering work that if we got into the +Despair Association at all it would follow as the result of my being +indicted for more or less justifiable manslaughter in having destroyed an +elderly gentleman of the vicinity, whom upon the occasion of our first +meeting I rechristened as Old Major Gloom, and of whom we still speak +behind his back by that same name. +</p> +<p> +The major lived a short distance from us, within easy walking distance, +and he speedily proved that he was an easy walker. I shall not forget the +first day he came to call. He ambled up a trail that the previous tenants, +through a chronic delusion, had insisted upon calling a road; and he found +me up to my gills in the midst of the preliminary job of trying to decide +where we should make a start at clearing out the jungle, which once upon a +time, probably back in the Stone Age, as nearly as we might judge from its +present condition, had been the house garden. +</p> +<p> +We had been camping on the place only a few days. We climbed over, through +and under mystic mazes of household belongings to get our meals, or to get +to our beds, or to get anywhere, and altogether were existing in a state +of disorder that might be likened to the condition the Germans created +with such thoroughgoing and painstaking efficiency when falling back from +an occupied French community. +</p> +<p> +I trust we are not lacking in hospitality; but, for the moment, we were in +no mood to receive visitors. However, upon first judgment the old major's +appearance was such as to disarm hostility and re-arouse the slumbering +instincts of cordiality. He was of a benevolent aspect, with fine white +whiskers and an engaging manner. If you can imagine one of the Minor +Prophets, who had stepped right out of the Old Testament, stopping en +route at a ready-made clothing store, you will have a very fair mental +picture of the major as he looked when he approached me, with hand +outstretched, and in warm tones bade me welcome to Upper Westchester. He +fooled me; he would have fooled anybody unless possibly it were an expert +criminologist, trained at discerning depravity when masked behind a +pleasing exterior. +</p> +<p> +When he spoke I placed him with regard to his antecedents, for I had been +on the spot long enough to recognize the breed to which he belonged. There +is a type of native-born citizen of this part of New York State who comes +of an undiluted New England strain, being the descendant of pioneering +Yankees who settled along the lower Hudson Valley after the Revolution and +immediately started in to trade the original Dutch settlers out of their +lands and their eyeteeth. +</p> +<p> +The subsequent generations of this transplanted stock have preserved some +of the customs and many of the idioms of their stern and rock-bound +forebears; at the same time they have acquired most of the linguistic +eccentricities of the New York cockney. Except that they dwell in +proximity to it, they have nothing in common with the great city that is +only thirty or forty miles away as the motorist flies. Generally they +profess a contempt for New York and all its works. They may not visit it +once a year; but, all the same, its influence has crept up through the +hills to tincture their mode of speech with queer distinctive modes of +pronunciation. +</p> +<p> +The result is a composite dialectic system not to be found anywhere else +except in this little strip of upland country and in certain isolated +communities over on Long Island, along the outer edge of the zone of +metropolitan life and excitement. For instance, a member of this race of +beings will call a raspberry a “rosbry”; and he will call a bluebird a +“blubbud,” thereby displaying the inherited vernacular of the Down East +country. He will say “oily” when he means early, and “early” when he means +oily, and occasionally he will even say “yous” for you—peculiarities +which in other environment serve unmistakably to mark the born-and-bred +Manhattanite. +</p> +<p> +The major at once betrayed himself as such a person. He introduced +himself, adding that as a neighbor he had felt it incumbent to call. I +removed a couple of the family portraits and a collection of Indian relics +and a few kitchen utensils, and one thing and another, from the seat of a +chair, and begged him to sit down and make himself at home, which he did. +He accepted a cigar, which I fished out of a humidor temporarily tucked +away beneath a roll of carpet; and we spoke of the weather, to which he +gave a qualified and cautious indorsement. Then, without further delay, he +hitched his chair over and laid a paternal hand upon my arm. +</p> +<p> +“I hear you've got Blank, the lawyer, searching out the title to your +propputty here.” + </p> +<p> +“Yes,” I said; “Mr. Blank took the matter in hand for us. Fine man, isn't +he?” + </p> +<p> +“Well, some people think so,” he said with an emphasis of profound +significance. +</p> +<p> +“Doesn't everybody think so?” I inquired. “Listen,” he said; “my motto is, +Live and let live. And, anyhow, I'm the last man in the world to go round +prejudicing a newcomer against an old resident. Now I've just met you and, +on the other hand, I've known Blank all my life; in fact, we're sort of +related by marriage—a relative of his married a relative of my +wife's. So, of course, I've got nothing to say to you on that score except +this—and I'm going to say it to you now in the strictest confidence—if +I was doing business with Blank I'd be mighty, mighty careful, young man.” + </p> +<p> +“You astonish me,” I said. “Mr. So-and-So”—naming a prominent +business man of the county seat—“recommended his firm to me.” + </p> +<p> +“Oh, So-and-So, eh? I wonder what the understanding between those two is? +Probably they've hatched up something.” + </p> +<p> +“Why, isn't So-and-So above suspicion?” I asked. “I wouldn't say he was +and I wouldn't say he wasn't. But, just between you and me, I'd think +twice about taking any advice he gave me. They tell me you've let the +contract for some work to Dash & Space?” + </p> +<p> +“Yes; I gave them one small job.” + </p> +<p> +“Too bad!” + </p> +<p> +“What's too bad?” + </p> +<p> +“You'll be finding out for yourself before you're done; so I won't say +anything more on that subject neither. I could tell you a good deal about +those fellows if I was a-mind to; but I never believed in repeating +anything behind a man's back I wouldn't say to his face. Live and let +live!—that's my motto. Anyhow, if you've already signed up with Dash +& Space it's too late for you to be backing out—but keep your +eyes open, young man; keep your eyes wide open. Who's your architect going +to be?” + </p> +<p> +I told him. He repeated the name in rather a disappointed fashion. +</p> +<p> +“Never heard of him,” he admitted; “but I take it he's like the run of his +kind of people. I never yet saw the architect that I'd trust as far as I +could sling him by the coat-tails. Say, ain't that Bink's delivery wagon +standing over yonder in front of your stable?” + </p> +<p> +“I think so. We've been buying some things from Bink.” + </p> +<p> +“You've opened up a regular account with him, then?” + </p> +<p> +“Yes.” + </p> +<p> +“Well, I wouldn't reflect on Bink's honesty for any amount of money in the +world. Of my own knowledge I don't know anything against him one way or +the other. Of course, from time to time I've heard a lot of things that +other people said about him; but that's only hearsay evidence, and I make +it a rule not to repeat gossip about anybody. Still”—he lingered +over the word—“still, if it was me instead of you, I'd go over his +bills very carefully—that's all! +</p> +<p> +“I don't blame any fellow for trying to get along in his business; and I +guess the competition is so keen in the retail merchandising line that +oncet in a while a man just naturally has to skin his customers a little. +But that's no argument why he should try to take the entire hide off of +'em. They tell me Bink's bookkeeper is a regular wizard when it comes to +making up an account, 'specially for a stranger.” He took a puff or two at +his cigar, meantime squinting across our weed-grown fields. “Don't I see +'Lonzo Begee chopping dead trees down there alongside the road?” + </p> +<p> +“Yes; I believe that's his name. He only came to work for us this morning. +Seems to be a hustler.” + </p> +<p> +“Does he, now? Well, ain't it a curious circumstance how many fellers +starting in at a new job just naturally work their heads off and wind up +at the end of the second week loafing? Strikes me that's particularly the +case with the farm laborers round here. Now you take 'Lonzo Begee's case. +He never worked for me—I'm mighty careful about who I hire, lemme +tell you!—but it always struck me as a strange thing that 'Lonzo +changes jobs so often. I make it a point to keep an eye on what's +happening in this neighborhood; and seems like every time I run acrost him +he's working in a different place for a different party. +</p> +<p> +“And yet you never can tell—he might turn out to be a satisfactory +hand for you. Stranger things have happened. And besides, what suits one +man don't suit another. I believe in letting a man find out about these +things for himself. The bitterer the experience and the more it costs him, +the more likely he is to remember the lesson and profit by it. Don't you +think so yourself?” + </p> +<p> +I told him I thought so; and presently he took his departure, after +remarking that we had purchased a place with a good many possibilities in +it; though, from what he had heard, we probably paid too much for it, and +he only hoped we didn't waste too much money in developing. He left me +filled with so many doubts and so many misgivings that I felt congested. +Within two days he was back, though, still actuated by the neighborly +spirit, to warn me against a few more persons with whom we had already had +dealings, or with whom we expected to have dealings, or with whom +conceivably we might some day have dealings. +</p> +<p> +And within a week after that he returned a third time to put me on my +guard against one or two more individuals who somehow had been overlooked +by him in his previous visits. Rarely did he come out in the open and +accuse anybody of anything. He was too crafty, too subtle for that. The +major was a regular sutler. But he certainly did understand the art of +planting the poison. Give him time enough, and he could destroy a fellow's +confidence in the entire human race. +</p> +<p> +He specialized in no single direction; his gifts were ample for all +emergencies. When he tired of making you distrustful of those about you, +or when temporarily he ran out of material, he knew the knack of making +you distrustful of your own judgment. For example, there was the time, in +the second month of our acquaintance I think it was, when he meandered in +to inspect the work of renovation that had just been started on the +stable. He spent perhaps ten minutes going over the premises, now and then +uttering low, disparaging, clucking sounds under his breath. I followed +him about fearsomely. I was distressed on account of the disclosures that +I felt would presently be forthcoming. +</p> +<p> +“Putting on a slate roof, eh?” he said when he was done with the +investigation. “Expect it to stay put?” + </p> +<p> +I admitted that such had been the calculation of the builder. +</p> +<p> +“Nothing like being one of these here optimists,” he commented dryly. “But +I want to tell you that it's the biggest mistake you ever made to put a +slate roof on those sloping gables without sticking in some metal uprights +to keep the snow from sliding off in a lump when the winter thaws come.” + </p> +<p> +It had always seemed to me that snow had few enough pleasures as it was. +Though I had given the subject but little thought, it appeared to me that +if sliding off a roof gave the snow any satisfaction it would ill become +me or any one else to interfere. I ventured to say as much. +</p> +<p> +“I guess you don't get my meaning,” he explained. “When the snow starts +sliding, if there's enough of it, it's purty sure to take most of those +slates along with it. And then where'll you be, I want to know?” + </p> +<p> +“Is—is it too late to put up some anti-sliding thingumbobs now?” I +asked. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, yes,” he said comfortingly; “it's too late now unless you ripped the +whole job off and started all over again. I judge you'll just have to let +Nature take its course. I see you've got a chimney that don't come over +the ridge of the roof. Are you calculating that it'll draw?” + </p> +<p> +“I rather hoped it would—that was the intention, I believe.” + </p> +<p> +“Well, then, you're in for another disappointment there. But if I was you +I shouldn't fret myself about that, because it'll be some months yet +before you'll be building a fire in the fireplace, what with the warm +weather just coming on; and you can have the top of the chimney lifted +almost any time.... I don't want to alarm you needlessly; but it looks to +me like mighty faulty drainpipes the plumber's been putting in for you. +You'll have to snatch all that out before a great while and have new pipes +put in proper. Don't it beat all what sharpers plumbers are? But then, +they're no worse than other artisans, taking them by and large. F'r +instance, what could be a worse job than that plastering in your bedroom, +or those tin gutters up yonder at your eaves? The plastering may stay up a +while, but the first good hard storm ought to bring the gutters down. I +don't like your masonry work, either, if you're asking me for my opinion; +and I see the carpenters are slipping in some mighty sorry-looking +flooring on you.” + </p> +<p> +I am not exaggerating. I am repeating, as accurately as I can, a +conversation that really took place. +</p> +<p> +For a while the major was in a fair way to spoil the present century for +me. If the inhabitants of the countryside were in a conspiracy to strip +the pelfry off a fresh arrival and divide it among them as souvenirs, if +there was no honesty left anywhere in a corrupted world, what, then, was +the use of living? Why not commit suicide according to one of the standard +methods and have done with the struggle, trusting that the undertaker +would not be too much of a gouge and that the executors of the estate +would leave a trifle of it for the widow and the orphan? +</p> +<p> +But, after a spell, during which from the various firms, corporations and +persons who had been traduced by him we uniformly had considerate and fair +and scrupulously honorable treatment and service, we began to disregard +the major's danger signals and to steer right past them. He, though, +wearied not in well-doing. At every chance he dropped in, a poison viper +disguised as a philanthropist, to hang another red light on the switch for +us. It was inevitable that his ministrations should get on our nerves. I +began to have visions centering about justifiable acts of homicide, always +with the major for the chosen victim of my violence. +</p> +<p> +It was after having such a dream that I figured myself as getting into +George Creel's Despair Association by virtue of having to stand trial over +at White Plains for murder. As a matter of fact, I spared the major; and +at last accounts he was still going to and fro in the land, planting +slanders on all likely sites. I take it that there is one counterpart for +him among every so many human beings; but it is in the country where every +one has a chance to find out every one's business, and where the excuses +of being neighborly and friendly give him opportunity for plying his trade +that he is most in evidence. +</p> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER V. IN WHICH WE BORE FOE WATER +</h2> +<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>e joined the Despair Association finally by reason of our water problem. +However, that was to come into our lives later. Through the springtime we +had more water than we could possibly hope to use, and we focused our +attentions and our energies upon hacking a homestead out of the briar +patch we had bought. +</p> +<p> +A painful acre at a time, we cleared lands that once had been cleared. As +I may have stated already, forty-odd years of disuse had turned lawn +space, garden space and meadow into one conglomerate jungle of towering +weeds and tangled thorny underbrush, stretching from the broken fences +along the highroad straight back to the dooryard of the moldering +tumbledown dwelling. With a gang of men under a competent foreman, and a +double team of hired horses, we assaulted that tangle, bringing to the +undertaking much of the same ardor and some of the same fortitude which I +imagine must have inspired Stanley on the day when he began chopping his +way through the trackless wilds of the dark forest to find Doctor +Livingstone. +</p> +<p> +It gave one the feeling of being a pioneer and a pathfinder—no, not +a pathfinder; a pathmaker—to stand by, superintending in a large, +broad, general, perfectly ignorant fashion the job of opening up those +thickets of ours to the sunlight that had not visited them for ever so +long. Off of one segment of our property, a slope directly behind the main +house, we took over four hundred wagonloads of stumps, roots, trunks, +boughs and brush—the fruitage of nearly two months of steady labor +on the part of men and horses. +</p> +<p> +The brambles were shorn down and piled in heaps to be burned. The locusts, +thousands of them, varying in size from half-grown trees to switchy +saplings, were by main force snatched out of the ground bodily. A number +of long-dead chestnuts and hickories, great unsightly snags that reared +above the uptom harried earth like monuments to past neglect, were felled +and sawed into cordwood lengths and carted away. +</p> +<p> +What emerged after these things had been done more than repaid us for all +our pains. When the rumpled soil had been smoothed back and plowed and +harrowed, and sown to grass, and when the grass had sprouted as promptly +as it did, there stood forth a dimpling green expanse where before had +been a damp, moldy and almost impenetrable tangle, hiding treasure-troves +of old tin cans, heaps of rusted and broken farming implements and here +and there the bleached-out bones of a dead cow or a deceased horse. +</p> +<p> +To our abounding astonishment, we found ourselves the owners of a +considerable number of old but healthy apple trees and a whole grove of +cherry trees that we hadn't known were there at all, so thoroughly had +they been buried in the locusts and the sumacs. It was just like finding +them. Indeed, it was finding them. +</p> +<p> +The old house came down next, with some slight assistance from a crew of +wreckers. Being almost ready to come down of its own accord it met them +halfway. They had merely to pry into the foundations, hit her a hard +wallop in the ribs, and then run for their lives. From the wreckage we +reclaimed, out of the cellar, which was pre-Revolutionary, some hand-hewn +oak beams in a perfect state of preservation; and out of the upper floors, +which were pre-James K. Polk, a quantity of interior trim, along with door +frames and window sashes. +</p> +<p> +Incidentally we dispossessed a large colony of rats and a whole synod of +bats, a parish of yellow wasps and a small but active congregation of +dissenting cats—half-wild, glary-eyed, roach-backed, mangy cats that +resided under the broken flooring. In all there were fourteen of these +cats—swift and rangy performers, all of them. One and all, they +objected to being driven from home. They hung about the razed wreckage, +and by night they convened in due form upon a bare knoll hard by, and held +indignation meetings. +</p> +<p> +Parliamentary disputes arose frequently, with the result that the +proceedings might be heard for a considerable distance. I took steps to +break up these deliberations, and after several of the principal debaters +had met a sudden end—I am a very good wing shot on cats—the +survivors saw their way clear to departing entirely from the vicinity. +Within a week thereafter the song birds, which until then had been +strangely scarce upon the premises, heard the news, and began coming in +swarms. We put up nesting boxes and feeding shelves, and long before June +arrived we had hundreds of feathered boarders and a good many pairs of +feathered tenants. +</p> +<p> +One morning in the early part of the month of June I counted within sight +at one time fourteen varieties of birds, including such brilliantly +colored specimens as a scarlet tanager and his mate; a Baltimore oriole; a +bluebird; an indigo bunting; a chat; and a flicker—called, where I +came from, a yellow hammer. Robins were probing for worms in the rank +grass; two brown thrashers and a black-billed cuckoo were investigating +the residential possibilities of a cedar tree not far away; and from the +woods beyond came the sound of a cock grouse drumming his amorous fanfare +on a log. +</p> +<p> +Think of what that meant to a man who, for the better part of twelve +years, had been hived up in a flat, with English sparrows for company, +when he craved a bit of wild life! +</p> +<p> +What had been a gardener's cottage stood at the roadside a hundred yards +away from the site of the main house. On first examination it seemed fit +only for the scrap heap; but one of those wise elderly persons who are to +be found in nearly every rural community—a genius who was part +carpenter, part mason, part painter, part glazier and part plasterer—was +called into consultation, and he decided that, given time and material for +mending, he might be able to do something with the shell. Modestly he +called himself an odd-jobs man; really he was a doctor to decrepit and +ailing structures. +</p> +<p> +From neglect and dry rot the patient was almost gone; but he nursed it +back to a new lease on life, trepanning its top with new rafters, +splinting its broken sides with new clapboards. He cured the cellar walls +of rickets, the roof of baldness, and the inside woodwork of tetter; and +he so wrought with hammer and saw and nails, with lime and cement, with +paintbrush and putty knife, that presently what had been a most +disreputable blot on the landscape became not only a livable little house +but an exceedingly picturesque one, what with its wide overhanging gables, +its cocky little front veranda, and its new complexion of roughcast +stucco. +</p> +<p> +While this transformation was accomplished in the lower field, we were +doing things to the barn up on the hillside. It had good square lines, the +barn had; and, though its outer casing was in a woeful state of nonrepair, +its frame, having been built sixty or seventy years ago of splendid big +timbers, stood straight and unskewed. Thanks to the ability of our +architect to dream an artistic dream and then to create it, this +structure, without impairment of its general lines and with no change at +all in its general dimensions, presently became a combination garage and +bungalow. +</p> +<p> +The garage part was down below, occupying the space formerly given over to +horse stalls and cow sheds. Here, also, a furnace room, a laundry and a +servant's room were built in. Above were the housekeeping quarters—three +bedrooms; two baths; a big living hall, with a wide-mouthed fireplace in +it; a kitchen, and a pantry. This floor had been the haymow; but I'll +warrant that if any of the long-vanished hay which once rested there could +have returned it wouldn't have known the old place. +</p> +<p> +The roof of the transmogrified mow was sufficiently high to permit the +construction of a roomy attic, with accommodations for one sleeper at one +end of it, and ample storage space besides. +</p> +<p> +At the back of the building, where the teams had driven in, a little +square courtyard of weathered brick was laid; a roof of rough Vermont +slate was laid on in an irregular splotchy pattern of buff and yellow and +black squares; and finally, upon the front, at the level of the second +floor, the builder hung on a little Italian balcony, from which on clear +days, looking south down the Hudson, we have a forty-mile stretch of +landscape and waterscape before us. +</p> +<p> +On the nearer bank, two miles away, the spires of the market town show +above the tree tops; on the further bank, six miles away, the rumpled blue +outlines of the Ramapo Hills bulk up against the sky line; and back of +those hills are sunsets such as ambitious artists try, more or less +unsuccessfully, to put on canvas. +</p> +<p> +All this had not cost so much as it might have, because all the interior +trim, all the doors and windows, and all the studs and joists and beams +had been reclaimed from the demolished main building. The chief +extravagances had been a facing of stonework for the garage front and a +stucco dress for the upper walls. We broke camp and moved in. +</p> +<p> +For a month or so we went along swimmingly. One morning we quit swimming. +All of a sudden we woke up to find there was no longer sufficient water +for aquatic pastimes. +</p> +<p> +The absolutely unprecedented dry spell that occurs every second or third +year in this part of the North Temperate Zone had descended upon us, +taking us, as it were, unawares. The brooks were going dry; the grass on +hillsides where the soil was thin turned from a luscious green to a +parched brown; and the mother spring of our seven up the valley, which had +gushed so plenteously, now diminished overnight, as it were, into a puny +runlet. There were no indications that the spring would be absolutely dry; +but there was every indication that it would continue to lessen in the +volume of its output—which it did. We summoned friends and +well-wishers into consultation, and by them were advised to dig an +artesian well. +</p> +<p> +We did not want to bother with artesian wells then. We were living very +comfortably upstairs over the garage and we were planning the house we +meant to build. We had drawn plans, and yet more plans, torn them up and +started all over again; and had found doing this to be one of the deepest +pleasures of life. Time without end we had conferred with friends who had +built houses of their own, and who gave us their ideas of the things which +would be absolutely indispensable to our comfort and happiness in our new +house. We had incorporated these ideas with a few of our own, and then we +had found that if we meant to construct a house which would please all +concerned, ourselves included, there would be needed a bond issue to float +the enterprise and the completed structure would be about the size of a +cathedral. So then we would trim down, paring off a breakfast porch here +and a conservatory there, until we had a design for a compact edifice not +much larger than an averagesized railroad terminal. +</p> +<p> +Between times, when not engaged in the pleasing occupation of building our +house on paper, we chose the site where it should stand. This, also, +consumed a good many days, because each time we decided on a different +location. One of our favorite recreations was shifting the house we meant +to build about from place to place. We put imaginary wheels under that +imaginary home of ours and kept it traveling all over the farm. The +trouble with us was we had too much latitude. With half an acre of land at +our disposal, we should have been circumscribed by boundary lines. On half +an acre you have to be reasonably definite about where you are going to +build; slide too far one way or the other, and you are committing +trespass, and litigation ensues. But we had sixty acres from which to pick +and to choose—sixty acres, with desirable sites scattered all over +the tract. +</p> +<p> +No sooner had we absolutely and positively settled on one spot as the spot +where the house must stand than we would find half a dozen others equally +desirable, or even more so; and then, figuratively speaking, we would pick +up the establishment and transport it to one of the newly discovered +spots, and wheel it round to face in a different direction from the +direction in which it had just been facing. If a thing that does not yet +physically exist may have sensations, the poor dizzy thing must have felt +as if it were a merry-go-round. +</p> +<p> +Likewise we were very busy putting in our road. Up until a short time ago +Miss Anna Peck, who makes a specialty of scaling supposedly inaccessible +crags, was probably the only living person who could have derived any +pleasure from penetrating to our mountain fastness, either afoot or +otherwise. When we heard an engine in difficulties coughing down under the +hill, followed by the sound of a tire blowing out, or by the smell of +rubber scorching as the brakes clamped into the fabric, we knew some of +our friends had been reckless enough to undertake to climb up by motor. +So, unless we wanted to become hermits, we felt it incumbent upon us to +put in a road. +</p> +<p> +When we got the estimates on the job we decided that the contractor must +have figured on building our road of chalcedony or onyx or moss agate or +some other of the semi-precious stones. It didn't seem possible that he +meant to use any native material—at that price. It turned out, +though, that his bid was fairly moderate—as processed blue-stone +roads go in this climate; and ours has cost us only about eight times as +much as I had previously supposed a replica of the Appian Way would cost. +However, it has been pronounced a very good road by critics who should +know; not a fancy road, but a fair average one. +</p> +<p> +It would look smarter, of course, with wide brick gutters down either side +of it for its entire length; and I should add brick gutters, too, if I +were as comfortably fixed, say, as Mr. Charles Schwab, and felt sure that +I could get some of the Vanderbilt boys to help me out in case I ran short +of funds before the job was completed. Still, for persons who live simply +it does very well. +</p> +<p> +With all these absorbing employments to engage us, we naturally were loath +to turn our attentions to water. We had lived too long in a flat where, +when you wanted water, you merely turned a faucet. To us water had always +been a matter of course. But now the situation was different. With each +succeeding day the flow from our spring was slackening. In its present +puniness it was no more than a reminder of the brave stream of the +springtime. +</p> +<p> +There was a water witch, so called, in the neighborhood—a gentleman +water witch. We were recommended to avail ourselves of his services. It +was his custom, we were told, to arm himself with a forked peach-tree +switch and walk about over the land, holding the wand in front of him by +its two prongs, meantime muttering strange incantations. When he came to a +spot where water lay close to the surface the other end of his divining +rod would dip magically toward the earth. You dug there, and if you struck +water the magician took the credit for it; and if you didn't strike water +it was a sign the peach-tree switch had wilfully deceived its proprietor, +and he cut a fresh twig off another and more dependable tree and gave you +a second demonstration at half rates. However, before opening negotiations +with this person, I bethought me to interview the man who had contracted +to do the boring. +</p> +<p> +The latter gentleman proved to be the most noncommittal man I ever met in +my life. He was as chary about making predictions as to the result of +operations in his line as the ticket agent of a jerkwater railroad down +South is about estimating the probable time of arrival of the next +passenger train—always conceding that there is to be any next train; +and that is as chary as any human being can possibly be. Only upon one +thing was he positive, which was that no peach-tree switch in the world +could be educated up to the point where it could find water that was +hidden underground. +</p> +<p> +Man and boy, he had been boring wells for thirty years, he said; and it +was all guess. One shaft would be put down—at three dollars a foot—until +it pierced the roof of Tophet, and the only resultant moisture would be +night sweats for the unhappy party who was footing the bills. Or the same +prospector might dig his estate so full of circular holes that it would +resemble honeycomb tripe, and never get anything except monthly statements +for the work to date. On the other hand, a luckier man, living right +across the way, had been known to start sinking a shaft, and before the +drill had gone twenty feet it became necessary to remove the women and +children to a place of safety until the geyser had been throttled down. +</p> +<p> +This particular well digger's business, as he himself explained, was +digging wells, not filling them after they were dug. He guaranteed to make +a hole in the ground of suitable caliber for an artesian well, but Nature +and Providence must do the rest. With this understanding, he fetched up +his outfit and greased himself and the machinery all over, and announced +that he was ready to start. +</p> +<p> +So we picked out a spot where it would be convenient to build a pump house +afterward, and he fixed up the engine and began grinding away. And he +ground and ground and ground. Every morning, whistling a cheerful air, he +would set his drills in circular motion, and all day he would keep it +turning and turning. At eventide I would call on him and he would report +progress—he had advanced so many feet or so many yards in a +southerly direction and had encountered such and such a formation. +</p> +<p> +“Any water?” At first I would put up the question hopefully, then +nervously, and finally for the sake of regularity merely. +</p> +<p> +“No water,” he would reply blithely; “but this afternoon about three +o'clock I hit a stratum of the prettiest white quartz you ever saw in your +life.” And, with the passion of the born geologist gleaming in his eye, he +would pick up a handful of shining specimens and hold them out for me to +admire; but I am afraid that toward the last any enthusiasm displayed by +me was more or less forced. +</p> +<p> +And the next night it would be red sandstone, or gray mica, or sky-blue +schist, or mottled granite, or pink iron ore—or something! This +abandoned farm of ours certainly proved herself to be a mighty variegated +mineral prospect. In the course of four weeks that six-inch hole brought +forth silver and solder, soda and sulphur, borax and soapstone, crystal +and gravel, amalgam fillings and a very fair grade of moth balls. +</p> +<p> +It brought forth nearly everything that may be found beneath the surface +of the earth, I think, except radium—and water. On second thought, I +am not so sure about the radium. It occurs to me that we did strike a +trace of something resembling radium at the two-hundred-foot level—I +won't be positive. But I am absolutely sure about the water. There wasn't +any. +</p> +<p> +At the end of a long and expensive month we abandoned that hole, fruitful +though it was in mineral wealth, moved the machinery a hundred yards west, +and began all over again. We didn't get any water here, either; but before +we quit we ran into a layer of wonderful white marble. If anybody ever +discovers a way of getting marble for monuments and statuary out of a hole +six inches in diameter and a hundred and seventy-five feet deep our +fortunes are made. We have the hole and the marble at the bottom of it; +all he will have to provide is the machinery. +</p> +<p> +By now we were desperate, but determined. We sent word to George Creel to +rush us application blanks for membership in his Despair Association. We +transferred the digging apparatus to a point away down in the valley, and +the contractor retuned his engine and inserted a new steel drill—his +other one had been worn completely out—and we began boring a third +time. And three weeks later—oh, frabjous joy!—we struck water—plenteous +oodles of it; cold, clear and pure. And then we broke ground for our new +house. +</p> +<p> +That isn't all—by no means is it all. Free from blight, our potatoes +are in the bin; our apples have been picked; and our corn has been +gathered, and in a rich golden store, it fills our new corncrib. We are +eating our own chickens and our own eggs; we are drinking milk from our +own cow; and we are living on vegetables of our own raising. +</p> +<p> +Until now I never cared deeply for turnips. Turnips, whether yellow or +white, meant little in my life. But now I know that was because they were +strange turnips, not turnips which had grown in our own soil and for which +I could have almost a paternal affection. Last night for dinner I ate a +derby hatful of mashed turnips, size seven and an eighth. +</p> +<p> +Let the servants quit now if they will—and do. Only the day before +yesterday the laundress walked out on us. It was our new laundress, who +had succeeded the old laundress, the one who stayed with us for nearly two +consecutive weeks before the country life palled upon her sensitive +spirit. And the day before that we lost a perfect treasure of a housemaid. +She disliked something that was said by some one occupying the +comparatively unimportant position of a member of the family, and she took +umbrage and some silverware and departed from our fireside. We've had our +troubles with cooks, too. +</p> +<p> +When the latest one showed signs of a gnawing discontent I offered to take +lessons on the ukulele and play for her in the long winter evenings that +are now upon us. I suggested that we think up charades and acrostics—I +am very fertile at acrostics—and have anagram parties now and then +to while away the laggard hours. But no; she felt the call of the city and +she must go. We are expecting a fresh candidate to-morrow. We shall try to +make her stay with us, however brief, a pleasant one. +</p> +<p> +But these domestic upsets are to us as nothing at all; for we have struck +water, and we are living, in part at least, on our own home-grown +provender, and shortly we shall start the home of our dreams. And to-day +something else happened that filled our cup of joy to overflowing. In the +middle of the day a dainty little doe came mincing down through our garden +just as confidently as though she owned the place. +</p> +<p> +We are less than an hour by rail from the Grand Central Station; and yet, +as I write this line, a lordly cock grouse is strutting proud and unafraid +through the undergrowth not fifty yards from my workroom! Last night, when +I opened my bedroom window—in the garage—to watch the distant +reflection of the New York lights, flickering against the sky to the +southward, I heard a dog fox yelping in the woods! +</p> +<p> +Let Old Major Gloom, the human Dismal Swamp, come over now as often as +pleases him. Our chalice is proof against his poison. +</p> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER VI. TWO MORE YEARS ELAPSE +</h2> +<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>s the reader will have no trouble in recalling, we broke ground for our +house. That, however, was after we had altered the design so often that +the first lot of plans and specifications got vertigo and had to be +retired in favor of a new set. For one thing, we snatched one entire floor +out of the original design—just naturally jerked it out from under +and cast it away and never missed it either. And likewise this was after +we had shifted the site of the house from one spot to another spot and +thence to a third likely spot, and finally back again to the first spot. +This, however, had one thing in its favor at least. It enabled us to do +our moving without taking our household goods from storage, and yet during +the same period to enjoy all the pleasurable thrill of shifting about from +place to place. I find moving in your mind is a much less expensive way +than the other way is and gives almost as much pleasure to a woman, who—being +a woman—is naturally a mover at heart. +</p> +<p> +Finally, though, all this preliminary skirmishing came to an end and we +actually started work on our house. I should say, we started work on what +formerly we had thought was going to be our house. It turned out we were +wrong. As it stands to-day, two years after the beginning, in a state +approaching completion, it is a very satisfactory sort of house we think, +artistically as well as from the standpoint of being practical and +comfortable; but it is no longer entirely our house. The architect is +responsible for the general scheme of things, for the layout and the +assembling of the wood and the brick and the cement and the stonework and +all that sort of thing, and to him largely will attach the credit if the +effect within and without should prove pleasing to the eye. Likewise, here +and there are to be found the traces of ideas which we ourselves had, but +I must confess the structure is also a symposium of the modified ideas of +our friends and well-wishers mated to our ideas. +</p> +<p> +To me human nature presents a subject for constant study. For a thing so +widely distributed as it is, I regard it as one of the most interesting +things there are anywhere. It seems to me one of the chief peculiarities +of human nature is that it divides all civilized mankind into two special +groups—those who think they could run any newspaper better than the +man who is trying to run it, and those who think they could run any hotel +better than the man who is hanging on as manager or proprietor of it. +There are subdivisional classifications of course—for example, women +who think they can tell any other woman how to bring up her children +without spoiling them to death, and women who are absolutely sure no woman +on earth can tell them anything about the right way to bring up their own +children; which two groupings include practically all women. And I have +yet to meet the man who did not believe that he was a good judge of either +horses, diamonds, wines, women, salad dressings, antique furniture, +Oriental rugs or the value of real estate. And finally all of these, +regardless of sex and regardless, too, of previous experience in the line, +know better how a house intended for living purposes should be designed +and arranged than the individuals who are paying the bills and who expect +to tenant the house as a home when it is done. By the same token—or +by the inverse ratio of the same token—the persons who are building +the house invariably begin to have doubts and misgivings regarding the +worth of their own pet notions in regard to the said house the moment some +outsider offers a counter argument. I do not know why this last should be +so, but it is. It merely is one of the inexplicable phases of the common +phenomenon called human nature. +</p> +<p> +In our own case the force of this fact applied with a pronounced emphasis. +When the tentative draft of the house of our dreams was offered for our +inspection it seemed to us a gem—perfect, precious and rare. Filled +with pride as we were, we showed the drawings to every one who came to see +us. Getting out the drawings when somebody called became a regular habit +with us. Being ourselves so deeply interested in them, we couldn't +understand why our friends shouldn't be interested too. And they were—I'll +say that much for them; they were all interested. And why not? For one +thing, it gave them a chance to show how right they were regarding the +designing of a house; not our house particularly, but anything under a +roof, ranging from St. Peter's at Rome to the façade of the government +fish hatchery in Tupelo, Mississippi. For another thing, it gave them a +chance to show us how completely wrong we were on this subject. Not a +single soul among them but pounced at the opportunity. Until then I never +realized how many born pouncers—not amateur pouncers but +professional expert master pouncers—I numbered in my acquaintance. +Right from the beginning the procedure followed a certain ritual. A caller +or pouncer would drop in and have off his things and get comfortably +settled. We would produce the sketches, fondling them lovingly, and spread +them out and invite the attention of our guest to probably the only +perfect design of a house fashioned by the mind of man since the days of +the mound builders on this hemisphere. In our language we may not have +gone quite so far as to say all this, but our manner indicated that such +was the case. +</p> +<p> +He—for convenience in the illustration I shall make him a man, +though in the case of a woman the outcome remained the same—he would +consider the matchless work of inventive art presented for his +consideration and then he would say; “An awfully nice notion—splendid, +perfectly splendid! And still, you know, if I were——” + </p> +<p> +And so on. +</p> +<p> +Or perhaps it would be: “Oh, I like the general idea immensely! But—you'll +pardon my making a little suggestion, won't you?—but if I were +tackling this proposition—” And so on. +</p> +<p> +It has been my observation that all complimentary remarks uttered by a +member of the human race in connection with a house which somebody else +contemplates building end in “but.” + </p> +<p> +You just simply can't get away from it. +</p> +<p> +From the treasure-troves of my memory I continue to quote: +</p> +<p> +“But if I were tackling this proposition I would certainly not put the +dining room here were you've got it. I'd switch it over there right next +to the living room and give a vista through. See, like this!” + </p> +<p> +And out would come his lead pencil. +</p> +<p> +“But that would mean eliminating the main hall,” one of us would venture. +</p> +<p> +“Of course it would,” Brother Pounce would say. “Next to giving a vista +through, cutting out the hall is the principal idea I had in mind. What do +you want with a hall here? For that matter, what do you want with a hall +any place that you can get along without it? Why, my dear people, don't +you know that hallways are no earthly good except to catch dust and be +drafty and make extra work for servants? And besides, in modern houses +people are cutting the hallways down to a minimum—to an absolute +minimum.” + </p> +<p> +We gathered that in a modern house—and, of course, a modern house +was what we devoutly craved to own—persons going from one part of it +to another didn't pass through a hall any more; they passed through a +minimum. The idea seemed rather revolutionary to persons reared—as +we had been—in houses with halls in them. Still, this person spoke +as one having authority and we would listen with due respect to his words +as he went on: +</p> +<p> +“All right, then, we'll consider the hallway as chopped out. By chopping +it out that gives us a chance to put the dining room here in this place +and give a vista through into the living room. Here, I'll show you exactly +what I mean—what did I do with my lead pencil? Because no matter +what else you do or do not have, you must have a vista through.” + </p> +<p> +Before he had finished with this alteration and taken up with the next one +we were made to understand that a house without a vista through was +substantially the same as no house at all. Ashamed that we had been guilty +of so gross an oversight, I would make a note, “Vista through,” on a +scratch pad which I kept for that very purpose. Under the spell of his +eloquence and compelling personality, I had already decided that first we +would build a vista through, and then after that if any money was left we +would sort of flank the vista through with bedrooms and a kitchen and +other things of a comparatively incidental nature. +</p> +<p> +Having scored this important point, the king of the pouncers—now +warming to his work and with his eyes feverishly lit by the enthusiasm of +the zealot—would proceed to claw the quivering giblets out of +another section of our plan. Hark to him: “And say, see here now, how +about your sun parlor? I can see two—no, three places suitable for +tacking on a sun parlor merely by moving some walls round and putting the +main entrance at the east front instead of the south front—funny the +architect didn't think of that! He should have thought of that the very +first thing if he calls himself a regular architect—and I suppose he +does. What's the idea, leaving off the sun parlor?” + </p> +<p> +Then weakly, with an inner sinking of the heart, we would confess that we +had not calculated on including any sun parlors in the general scope and +he for his part would proceed to show us how deadly an omission, how +grievous an offense this would be. +</p> +<p> +It is a curious psychological paradox that we dreaded these suggestions +and yet welcomed them, too. That is to say, we would begin by dreading +them—resenting them would perhaps be a better term—and +invariably would wind up by welcoming them. Nevertheless, there were times +when I gave my celebrated imitation of the turning worm. Jarred off my +mental balance by a proposed change which seemed entirely contrary to the +trend of the style of house we had in mind for our house, I would offer at +the outset a faint counter argument in defense, especially if a notion +which was about to be offered as a sacrifice on the altar of friendly +counsel had been a favorite little idea of my own—one that I had +found in my own head, as the saying went in the Army. Though knowing in +advance that I was fighting a losing fight, I would raise a meek small +voice in protest. Never once did my protesting avail. There was one stock +answer which my fellow controversialist always had handy—ready to +belt me with. +</p> +<p> +“One moment!” he would say, smiling the superior half-pitying smile which +was really responsible for Cain's killing Abel that time. +</p> +<p> +Abel smiled just exactly in that way and so Cain killed him, and if you're +asking me, he got exactly what was coming to him. “One moment!” he would +say. “You've never built a house before, have you?” + </p> +<p> +“No,” I would confess, “but—but—” + </p> +<p> +“Then, pardon me, but I have! What I am trying to do is to keep you from +making the mistakes I made. Almost anybody will make mistakes building his +first house. I only wish I'd had somebody round to advise me as I'm +advising you before I O. K.'d the plans and signed the contract. As it +was, it cost me four thousand dollars to pull out two walls so that we +could have a sun parlor. If you go ahead and build your house without +having a sun parlor you'll never regret it but once—and that'll be +all the time you live in it. Look here now, while I show you how easily +you can do it.” And so on and so forth until we would capitulate and I'd +write “Memo—sun parlor, sure,” on my little pad. +</p> +<p> +Take for example the matter of sleeping porches. +</p> +<p> +Personally I have never been drawn greatly to the idea of sleeping +outdoors. I used to think an outdoor bedroom must be almost as +inconvenient as an outdoor bathroom, and with me bathing has always been a +solitary pleasure. I have felt that I would not be at my best while +bathing before an audience. That may denote selfishness on my part, but +such is my nature and I cannot change it. I suppose this prejudice against +bathing before a crowd is constitutional with me—hereditary, as it +were. All my folks were awfully peculiar that way. +</p> +<p> +When they felt that they needed bathing they also felt that they needed +privacy. I sometimes think that my family must have been descended from +Susanna. She was a Biblical lady and so did not have any last name, but +you probably recall her from the circumstance of her having been surprised +while bathing by two snoopy elders. Whenever one of the Old Masters ran +out of other subjects to paint, he would paint a picture of Susanna and +the elders. In no two of their pictures did she look alike, but in all of +them that I've ever seen she looked embarrassed. Yes, I dare say Susanna +was our direct ancestress. Like practically all Southern families, ours is +a very old family and I've always been led to believe that we go back a +long way. True, I've never heard the Old Testament mentioned in this +connection, but in view of the fact of our family being such an old or +Southern family I reckon it is but fair to presume that we go back fully +that far if not farther. +</p> +<p> +Indeed I have been told that in my infancy a friend of the family, a man +who had delved rather into archeology, on calling one day remarked that I +had a head shaped exactly like a cuneiform Chaldean brick. It was years +later, however, before my parents learned what a cuneiform Chaldean brick +looked like and by that time the person who had paid me the compliment was +dead and it was too late to take offense at him. And anyhow, in the +meantime the contour of my skull had so altered that it was now possible +for me to wear a regular child's hat bought out of a store. I point out +the circumstance merely as possible collateral evidence showing +semiprehistoric hereditary influences to corroborate the more or less +direct evidence that as a family we antedate nearly all—if not all—of +these Northern families by going back into the very dawn of civilization. +I have a great aunt who rather specializes in genealogies and especially +our own genealogy and the next time I see her I mean to ask her to consult +the authorities and find out whether there is a strain of the Susanna +blood in our stock. If she confirms my present belief that there is I +shall be very glad to let everybody know about it in an appendix to the +next edition of this work. +</p> +<p> +As with taking a bath outdoors, so with sleeping outdoors; this always was +my profound conviction. I had a number of arguments, all good arguments I +thought, to offer in support of my position. To begin with, I am what +might be called a sincere sleeper, a whole-souled sleeper. I have been +told that when I am sleeping and the windows are open everybody in the +vicinity knows I am actually sleeping and not lying there tossing about +restlessly upon my bed. I would not go so far as to say that I snore, but +like most deep thinkers I breathe heavily when asleep. On board a sleeping +car I have been known to breathe even more heavily than the locomotive +did. I know of this only by hearsay, but when twenty or thirty passengers, +all strangers to you, unite in a common statement to the same effect you +are bound to admit, if you have any sense of fairness in your make-up, +that there must be an element of truth in what they allege. +</p> +<p> +Very well, then, let us concede that I sleep with the muffler cut out +open. In view of this fact I have felt that I would not care to sleep in +the open where my style of sleeping might invite adverse comment. In such +a matter I try to have a proper consideration for the feelings of others. +Indeed I carried it to such a point that when we lived in the closely +congested city, with neighboring flat dwellers just across a narrow +courtyard, I placed the head of my bed in such a position that I might do +the bulk of my breathing up the chimney. +</p> +<p> +Besides—so I was wont to argue—what in thunder was the good of +having a comfortable cozy bedroom with steam heat and everything in it, +and a night lamp for reading if one felt like reading, and a short cut +down to the pantry if one felt hungry in the small hours, and then on a +cold night deliberately to crawl out on a wind-swept porch hung against +the outer wall of the house and sleep there? I once knew one of these +sleeping-porch fiends who was given to boasting that in wintertime he +often woke to find the snow had drifted in on the top of him while he +slept. He professed to like the sensation; he bragged about it. From his +remarks you gleaned that his idea of a really attractive boudoir was the +polar bear's section up at the Bronx Zoo. I was sorry his name had not +been Moe instead of Joe—which was what it was—because if it +had only been the former I had thought up a clever play on words. I was +going to catch him in company and trap him into boasting about loving to +sleep in a snowdrift and then I was going to call him Eskimo, which should +have been good for a laugh every time it was spontaneously sprung on a +fresh audience. +</p> +<p> +In short, taking one thing with another, I have never favored sleeping +porches. But after listening to friends who either had them or who were so +sorry they didn't have them that they were determined we should have a +full set of them on our house, we concurred in the consensus of opinion +and decided to cast aside old prejudices and to have them at all hazards. +I believe in the rule of the majority—of course with a few private +reservations from time to time, as for instance, when the majority gets +carried away by this bone-dry notion. +</p> +<p> +I recall in particular one friend who was especially emphatic and +especially convincing in the details of offering suggestions and advice, +and—where he deemed such painful measures necessary—in +administering reproof for and correction of our faulty misconceptions of +what a house should be. But then he was a Bostonian by birth and a Harvard +graduate and had the manner—shall we call it the slightly superior +manner?—which so often marks one who may boast these two +qualifications. When you meet a well-bred native Bostonian who has been +through Harvard it is as though you had met an egg which had enjoyed the +unique distinction of having been laid twice and both times successfully. +Our friend was distinctly that way. When he had rendered judgment there +was no human appeal. It never occurred to us there could be any appeal. +</p> +<p> +So we incorporated sleeping porches and vistas through and sun parlors and +a hundred other things—more or less—into the plan. Obeying the +wills of stronger natures than ours, we figuratively knocked out walls and +then on subsequent and what appeared to be superior counsel figuratively +stuck them back in again. We lifted the roof for air and we lowered it for +style. We tiled the floors and then untiled them and put down beautiful +mental hardwood all over the place. We rejected paneled wainscotings in +favor of rough-cast plaster and then abolished the plaster for something +in the nature of a smooth finish for our walls. By direction we tacked on +an ell here and an annex there. If we had kept all the additions which at +one period or another we were quite sure we must keep in order to make our +home complete we should have had a house entirely unsuitable for persons +of our position in life to reside in, but could have made considerable +sums of money by renting it out for national conventions. +</p> +<p> +On one point and only one point did we remain adamant. Otherwise we were +as clay in the hands of the potter, as flax to the loom of the weaver; but +there we were as adamant as an ant. We concurred in the firm and +unswervable decision that—no matter what else we might have or might +not have in our house—we would not have a den in it. By den I mean +one of those cubby-holes opening off a living room or an entrance hall +that is fitted up with woolly hangings and an Oriental smoking set where +people are supposed to go and sit when they wish to be comfortable—only +nobody in his right mind ever does. In my day I have done too much +traveling on the Pullman of commerce to crave to have a section of one in +my home. Call them dens if you will; I know a sleeping-car compartment +when I see it, even though it be thinly disguised by a pair of +trading-stamp scimitars crossed over the door and a running yard of +mailorder steins up on a shelf. Several earnest advocates of the den +theory tried their persuasive powers on us, but each time one or the other +of us turned a deaf ear. When her deaf ear was tired from turning I would +turn mine a while, and vice versa. There is no den in our home. Except +over my dead body there never shall be one. +</p> +<p> +While on this general subject I may add that if anybody succeeds in +sticking a Japanese catalpa on our lawn it will also be necessary to +remove my lifeless but still mutely protesting remains before going ahead +with the planting. I have accepted the new state income tax in the spirit +in which it seems to be meant—namely, to confiscate any odd +farthings that may still be knocking round the place after the Federal +income tax has been paid, and a very sound notion, too. What is money for +if it isn't for legislators to spend? Should the Prohibitionists put +through the seizure-and-search law as a national measure I suppose in time +I may get accustomed to waking up and finding a zealous gent with a badge +and one of those long prehensile noses especially adapted for poking into +other people's businesses, such as so many professional uplifters have, +prowling through the place on the lookout for a small private bottle +labeled “Spirits Aromatic Ammonia, Aged in the Wood.” With the passage of +time I may become really enthusiastic over the prospect of having my +baggage ransacked for contraband essences every time I cross the state +line. My taste in pyjamas has been favorably commented on and there is no +reason why my fellow travelers should not enjoy a treat as the inspector +dumps the contents of the top tray out on the car floor. The main thing is +to get used to whatever it is that we have got to get used to. +</p> +<p> +But I have a profound conviction that in the matter of a Japanese catalpa +on the lawn, just as in the matter of a den opening off the living room +and taking up the space which otherwise would make a first-rate +umbrella-and-galosh closet, I could never hope to get used. Nor do I yearn +for a weeping mulberry tree about the premises. I dislike its prevalent +shape and the sobbing sound it makes when especially moved by the distress +which chronically afflicts the sensitive thing. Nature endowed our +abandoned farm with a plenteous selection of certain deciduous growths +common to the temperate zone—elms and maples and black walnuts and +hickories and beeches and birches and dogwoods and locusts; also pines and +hemlocks and cedars and spruces. What the good Lord designed as suitable +arboreal adornment for the eastern seaboard is good enough for me. I have +no desire to clutter up the small section of North America to which I hold +the title deeds with trees which do not match in with the rest of North +America. I should as soon think of putting a pagoda on top of Pike's Peak +or connecting the Thousand Islands with a system of pergolas. +</p> +<p> +Having got that out of my system, let us get off the grounds and back to +the house proper. As I was remarking just before being diverted from the +main line, a den was about the only voluntary offering which we positively +refused to take over. Every other notion of whatsoever nature was duly +adopted and duly carried on to the architect He was a wonderful man. All +architects, I am convinced, must be wonderful men, but him I would call +one of the pick of his breed. How he managed to make practical use of some +of the ideas we brought to him and fit them into the plan; how without +hurting our feelings or the feelings of our friends he succeeded in curing +us of sundry delusions we had acquired; how he succeeded in confining the +ground plan to a scale which would not make the New York Public Library +seem in comparison a puny and inconsequential edifice; and how taking a +number of the suggestions which came to him and rejecting the others he +yet preserved the structural balance and the suitable proportions which he +had had in his mind all along—these, to my way of thinking, +approximate the Eighth Wonder. No, it is the first wonder; the remaining +seven finish place, show and also ran. +</p> +<p> +After a season of debate, compromise and conciliation, when the gray in +his hair had perceptibly thickened and the lines in his face had deepened, +though still he wore his chronic patient smile which makes strangers like +him, the final specifications were blue-printed and the work was started. +A lady to whom I have the honor of being very closely related by marriage +removed the first shovel load of loam from the contemplated excavation. +She is not what you would call a fancy shoveler and the net result of her +labor, I should say offhand, was about a heaping dessert-spoonful of +topsoil. Had I guessed what that inconsequential pinch of earth would +subsequently mean to us in joy I should have put it in a snuffbox and +carried it about with me as the first tangible souvenir of a great +accomplishment and a reminder to me never again to look slightingly upon +small things. Bulk does not necessarily imply ultimate achievement. If Tom +Thumb had been two feet taller and eighteen inches broader than he was I +doubt whether he would amounted to much as a dwarf. +</p> +<p> +Well, we reared the foundations and then one fine April morning our +country abandoned its policy of watchful waiting for one of swatful +hating. While we were at war it did not seem patriotic to try to go ahead. +There was another reason—a variety of reasons rather. Very soon +labor was not to be had, or materials either. Take the detail of concrete. +Now that the last war is over and the next war not as yet started, I +violate no confidence and betray no trust in stating that one of our chief +military secrets had to do with this seemingly harmless product. We were +shooting concrete at the Germans. In large quantities it was fatal; in +small, mussy. And while the Germans were digging the gummy stuff out of +their eyes and their hair our fellows would swarm over the top and capture +them. And if you are not sure that I am telling the exact truth regarding +this I only wish you had tried during active hostilities—as I did—to +buy a few jorums and noggins of concrete. Trying would have made a true +believer of you, too. And the same might be said for steel girders and cow +hair to put into plaster so it will stick, and ten-penny nails. We were +firing all these things at the enemy. It must have disconcerted him +terribly to be expecting high explosives and have a keg of ten-penny nails +or a bale of cow hair burst in his midst. Without desire to detract from +the glory of the other branches of the service, I am of the opinion that +it was ten-penny nails that won the war. And in bringing about this +splendid result I did my share by not buying any in large amount for going +on eighteen months. +</p> +<p> +I couldn't. +</p> +<p> +War having come and concrete having gone, the contractor on our little job +knocked off operations until such time as Germany had been cured of what +principally ailed her. Even through the delay, though, we found pleasure +in our project. We would perch perilously upon the top of the jagged walls +and enjoy the view the while we imagined we sat in our finished dream +house. We could see it, even if no one else could. In rainy weather we +brought umbrellas along. The fact that a passerby beheld us thus on a +showery afternoon I suppose was responsible for the report which spread +through the vicinity that a couple of lunatics were roosting on some stone +ruins halfway up the side of Mott's Mountain. We didn't mind though. The +great creators of this world have ever been the victims of popular +misunderstanding. Sir Isaak Walton, sitting under an apple tree and +through the falling of an apple discovering the circulation of the blood, +is to us a splendid figure of genius; but I have no doubt the neighbors +said at the time that he would have been much better employed helping Mrs. +W. with the housework. And probably there was a lot of loose and scornful +talk when Benjamin Franklin went out in a thunderstorm with a kite and a +brass key and fussed round among the darting lightning bolts until he was +as wet as a rag and then came home and tried to dry his sopping feet +before one of those old-fashioned open fireplaces so common in that +period. But what was the result? +</p> +<p> +The Franklin heater—that's what. With such historic examples behind +us, what cared we though the tongue of slander wagged while we inhabited +our site with the leaky heavens for a roof to our parlor and the far +horizons for its wall. Not to every one is vouchsafed the double boon of +spending long happy days in one's home and at the same time keeping out in +the open air. +</p> +<p> +On the day the United Press scooped the opposition by announcing the +cessation of hostilities some days before the hostilities really cessated, +thereby scoring one of the greatest journalistic beats since the +Millerites prognosticated the end of the world, giving day, date and hour +somewhat prematurely in advance of that interesting event, which as a +matter of fact has not taken place yet—on that memorable day the +country at large celebrated the advent of peace. We also celebrated the +peace, but on a personal account we celebrated something else besides. We +celebrated the prospect of an early resumption of work in the construction +of our house. +</p> +<p> +During the months that followed I learned a lot about the intricacies and +the mysteries of house building. Beforehand, in my ignorance I figured +that the preliminary plans might be stretched out or contracted in to suit +the shifting mood of the designer and the sudden whim of his client, but +that once the walls went up and the beams went across and the rafters came +down both parties were thereafter bound by set metes and bounds. Not at +all. I discovered that there is nothing more plastic than brickwork, +nothing more elastic than a girder. A carpenter spends days of his time +and dollars of your money fitting and joining a certain section of +framework; that is to say, he engages in such craftsmanship when not +sharpening his saw. It has been my observation that the average +conscientious carpenter allows forty per cent of his eight-hour day to saw +sharpening. It must be a joy to him to be able to give so much time daily +to putting nice keen teeth in a saw, knowing that somebody else is paying +him for it at the rate of ninety cents an hour. Watching him at work in +intervals between saw filing, you get from him the impression that unless +this particular angle of the wooden skeleton is articulated just so the +whole structure will come tumbling down some day when least expected. At +length he gets the job done to his satisfaction and goes elsewhere. +</p> +<p> +Along comes a steamfitter and he, whistling merrily the while, takes a +chisel or an adze or an ax and just bodaciously haggles a large ragged +orifice in the carpenter's masterpiece. Through the hole he runs a Queen +Rosamond's maze of iron pipes. He then departs and the carpenter is called +back to the scene of the mutilation. After sharpening his saw some more in +a restrained and contemplative manner, he patches up the wound as best he +can. Enter, then, the boss plumber accompanied by a helper. The boss +plumber finds a comfortable two-by-four to sit on and does sit thereon and +lights up his pipe and while he smokes and directs operations the +assistant or understudy, with edged tools provided for that purpose, tears +away some of the cadaver's most important ribs and several joints of its +spinal column for the forthcoming insertion of various concealed fixtures. +</p> +<p> +Following the departure of these assassins the patient carpenter returns +and to the best of his ability reduces all the compound fractures that he +conveniently can get at, following which he sharpens his saw—not the +big saw which he sharpened from eight-forty-five to ten-fifteen o'clock +this morning, but the little buttonhole saw which he has not sharpened +since yesterday afternoon; this done, he calls it a day and goes home to +teach his little son Elmer, who expects to follow in the paternal +footsteps, the rudiments of the art of filing a saw without being in too +much of a hurry about it, which after all is the main point in this +department of the carpentering profession. +</p> +<p> +And the next day the plumber remembers where he left his sack of smoking +tobacco, or the steam fitter's attention is directed to the fact that when +he stuck in the big pipe like a bass tuba he forgot to insert alongside it +the little pipe like a piccolo, and therefore it becomes necessary to +maltreat the already thrice-mangled remains of woodwork. A month or so +later the plasterers arrive—they were due in a week, but a plasterer +who showed up when he was expected or any time within a month after he had +solemnly promised on his sacred word of honor that he meant to show up +would have his card taken away from him and be put out of the union. Hours +after Gabriel has blown his trump for the last call it is going to be +incumbent upon the little angel bell hops to go and page the plasterers, +else they won't get there for judgment at all. +</p> +<p> +Be that as it may and undoubtedly will be, in a month or so the plasterers +arrive, wearing in streaks the same effects in laid-on complexion that so +many of our leading débutantes are wearing all over their faces. The chief +plasterer looks over the prospect and decides that in order to insure a +smooth and unbroken surface for his plaster coat the plumbing and the +heating connections must have their elbows tucked in a few notches, which +ultimatum naturally requires the good offices of the carpenter, first to +snatch out and afterward to hammer back into some sort of alignment the +shreds and fragments of his original job. When this sort of thing, with +variations, has gone on through a period of months, a house has become an +intricate and complicated fabric of patchworks and mosaics held together, +as nearly as a layman can figure, by the power of cohesion and the +pressures of dead weights. The amazing part of it is that it stays put. I +am quite sure that our house will stay put, because despite the vagaries—perhaps +I should say the morbid curiosity—of various artificers intent on +taking the poor thing apart every little while, it was constructed of +materials which as humans compute mutabilities are reasonably permanent in +their basic characters. +</p> +<p> +It was our desire to have a new house that would look like an old house; a +yearning in which the architect heartily concurred, he having a distaste +for the slick, shiny, look-out-for-the-paint look which is common enough +in American country houses. In this ambition a combination of +circumstances served our ends. For the lower walls we looted two of the +ancient stone fences which meandered aimlessly across the face of our +acres. According to local tradition, those fences dated back to +pre-Revolutionary days; they were bearded thick with lichens and their +faces were scored and seamed. In laying them up we were fortunate enough +to find and hire a stonemason who was part artificer but mostly real +artist—an Italian, with the good taste in masonry which seems to be +inherent in his countrymen; only in this case the good taste was developed +to a very high degree. Literally he would fondle a stone whose color and +contour appealed to him and his final dab with the trowel of mortar was in +the nature of a caress. +</p> +<p> +On top of this find came another and even luckier one. Three miles away +was an abandoned brickyard. Once an extensive busy plant, it had lain idle +for many years. Lately it had been sold and the new owners were now +preparing to salvage the material it contained. Thanks to the forethought +of the architect, we secured the pick of these pickings. From old pits we +exhumed fine hard brick which had been stacked there for a generation, +taking on those colors and that texture which only long exposure to wind +and rain and sun can give to brick. These went into our upper walls. For a +lower price than knotty, wavy, fresh-cut, half-green spruce would have +cost us at a lumber yard, modern prices and lumber yards being what they +are, we stripped from the old kiln sheds beautiful dear North Carolina +boards, seasoned and staunch. These were for the rough flooring and the +sheathing. The same treasure mine provided us with iron bars for +reënforcing; with heavy beams and splendid thick wide rafters; with fire +brick glazed over by clays and minerals which in a molten state had flowed +down their surfaces; with girders and underpinnings of better grade and +greater weight than any housebuilder of moderate means can afford these +times. Finally, for roofing we procured old field slates of all colors and +thicknesses and all sizes; and these by intent were laid on in irregular +catch-as-catch-can fashion, suggestive when viewed at a little distance of +the effect of thatching. Another Italian, a wood carver this time, +craftily cut the scrolled beam ends which show beneath our friendly eaves +and in the shadows of our gables. It was necessary only to darken with +stains the newly gouged surfaces; the rest had been antiquated already by +fifty years of Hudson River climate. Before the second beam was in place a +wren was building her nest on the sloped top of the first one. We used to +envy that wren—she had moved in before we had. +</p> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER VII. “AND SOLD TO——” + </h2> +<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen the house was up as far as the second floor and the first mortgage, +talk rose touching on the furnishings. To me it seemed there would be +ample time a decade or so thence to begin thinking of the furnishings. So +far as I could tell there was no hurry and probably there never would be +any hurry. For the job had reached that stage so dismally familiar to any +one who ever started a house with intent to live in it when completed, if +ever. I refer to the stage when a large and variegated assortment of hired +help are ostensibly busy upon the premises and yet everything seems +practically to be at a standstill. From the standpoint of a mere bystander +whose only function is to pay the bills, it seems that the workmen are +only coming to the job of a morning because they hate the idea of hanging +round their own homes all day with nothing to do. +</p> +<p> +So it was with us. Sawing and hammering and steam fitting and plumbing and +stone-lying and brick-lying were presumed to be going on; laborers were +wielding the languid pick; a roof layer was defying the laws of +gravitation on our ridgepole; at stated intervals there were great gobs of +payments on account of this or that to be met and still and yet and +notwithstanding, to the lay eye the progress appeared infinitesimal. For +the first time I could understand why Pharaoh or Rameses or whoever it was +that built the Pyramids displayed peevishness toward the Children of +Israel. Indeed I developed a cordial sympathy for him. He had my best +wishes. They were four or five thousand years late, but even so he had 'em +and welcome. +</p> +<p> +Accordingly when the matter of investing in furnishings was broached I +stoutly demurred. As I recall, I spoke substantially as follows: +</p> +<p> +“Why all this mad haste? Rome wasn't built in a day, as I have often +heard, and in view of my own recent experiences I am ready to make +affidavit to the fact. I'll go further than that. I'll bet any sum within +reason, up to a million dollars, that the meanest smokehouse in Rome was +not built in a day. No Roman smokehouse—Ionic, Doric, Corinthian or +Old Line Etruscan—is barred. +</p> +<p> +“Unless workingmen have changed a whole lot since those times, it was not +possible to begin to start to commence to get ready to go ahead to proceed +to advance with that smokehouse or any other smokehouse in a day. And +after they did get started they dallied along and dallied along and killed +time until process curing came into fashion among the best families of +Ancient Rome and smokehouses lost their vogue altogether. Let us not be +too impetuous about the detail of furnishings. I have a feeling—a +feeling based on my own observations over yonder at the site of our own +little undertaking—that when that house is really done the only +furnishings we'll require will be a couple of wheel chairs and something +to warm up spoon victuals in. +</p> +<p> +“Anyhow, what's wrong with the furnishings we already have in storage? +Judging by the present rate of non-progress—of static advancement, +if I may use such a phrase—long before we have a place to set them +up in our furnishings will be so entirely out of style that they'll be +back in style all over again, if you get me. These things move in cycles, +you know. One generation buys furniture and uses it. The next generation +finding it hopelessly old-fashioned and out of date burns it up or casts +it away or gives it away or stores it in the attic—anything to get +rid of it. The third generation spends vast sums of money trying to +restore it or the likes of it, for by that time the stuff which was +despised and discarded is in strong demand and fetching fancy prices. +</p> +<p> +“The only mistake is to belong to the middle generation, which curiously +enough is always the present one. We crave what our grandparents owned but +our parents did not. Our grandchildren will crave what we had but our own +children won't. They'll junk it. To-day's monstrosity is +day-after-tomorrow's art treasure just as today's museum piece is +day-before-yesterday's monstrosity. Therefore, I repeat, let us remain +calm. I figure that when we actually get into that house our grandchildren +will be of a proper age to appreciate the belongings now appertaining to +us, and all will be well.” + </p> +<p> +Thus in substance I spoke. The counter argument offered was that—conceding +what I said to be true—the fact remained and was not to be gainsaid +that we did not have anywhere near enough of furnishings to equip the +house we hoped at some distant date to occupy. +</p> +<p> +“You must remember,” I was told, “that for the six or eight years before +we decided to move out here to the country we lived in a flat.” + </p> +<p> +“What of it?” I retorted instantly. “What of it?” I repeated, for when in +the heat of controversy I think up an apt bit of repartee like that I am +apt to utter it a second time for the sake of emphasis. Pausing only to +see if my stroke of instantaneous retort had struck in, I continued: +</p> +<p> +“That last flat we had swallowed up furniture as a rat hole swallows sand. +First and last we must have poured enough stuff into that flat to furnish +the state of Rhode Island. And what about the monthly statements we are +getting now from the storage warehouse signed by the president of the +company, old man Pl. Remit? Doesn't the size of them prove that in the +furniture-owning line at least we are to be regarded as persons of +considerable consequence?” + </p> +<p> +“Don't be absurd,” I was admonished. “Just compare the size of the largest +bedroom in that last flat we had in One Hundred and Tenth Street with the +size of the smallest bedroom we expect to have in the new place. Why, you +could put the biggest bedroom we had there into the smallest bedroom we +are going to have here and lose it! And then think of the halls we must +furnish and the living room and the breakfast porch and everything. Did we +have a breakfast porch in the flat? We did not! Did we have a living room +forty feet one way and twenty-eight the other? We did not! Did we have a +dining room in that flat that was big enough to swing a cat in?” + </p> +<p> +“We didn't have any cat.” + </p> +<p> +“All the same, we—” + </p> +<p> +“I doubt whether any of the neighbors would have loaned us a cat just for +that purpose.” I felt I had the upper hand and I meant to keep it. +“Besides, you know I don't like cats. What is the use of importing foreign +matters such as cats—and purely problematical cats at that—into +a discussion about something else? What relation does a cat bear to +furniture, I ask you? Still, speaking of cats, I'm reminded—” + </p> +<p> +“Never mind trying to be funny. And never mind trying to steer the +conversation off the right track either. Please pay attention to what I am +saying—let's see, where was I? Oh, yes: Did we have a hall in that +flat worthy to be dignified by the name of a hall? We did not! We had a +passageway—that's what it was—a passageway. Now there is a +difference between furnishing a mere passageway and a regular hall, as you +are about to discover before you are many months older.” + </p> +<p> +On second thought I had to concede there was something in what had just +been said. One could not have swung one's cat in our dining room in the +flat with any expectation of doing the cat any real good. And the hallway +we had in our flat was like nearly all halls in New York flats. It was +comfortably filled when you hung a water-color picture up on its wall and +uncomfortably crowded if you put a clarionet in the corner. It would have +been bad luck to open an umbrella anywhere in our flat—bad luck for +the umbrella if for nothing else. Despite its enormous capacity for +inhaling furniture it had been, when you came right down to cases, a +form-fitting fiat. So mentally confessing myself worsted at this angle of +the controversy, I fell back on my original argument that certainly it +would be years and years and it might be forever before we possibly could +expect—at the current rate of speed of the building operations, or +speaking exactly, at the current rate of the lack of speed—to move +in. +</p> +<p> +“But the architect has promised us on his solemn word of honor—” + </p> +<p> +“Don't tell me what the architect has promised!” I said bitterly. “Next to +waiters, architects are the most optimistic creatures on earth. A waiter +is always morally certain that twenty minutes is the extreme limit of time +that will be required to cook anything. You think that you would like, +say, to have a fish that is not listed on the bill of fare under the +subheading 'Ready Dishes'—it may be a whale or it may be a minnow: +that detail makes no difference to him—and you ask the waiter how +about it, and he is absolutely certain that it will be possible to borrow +a fishing pole somewhere and dig bait and send out and catch that fish and +bring it back in and clean it and take the scales and the fins off and +garnish it with sprigs of parsley and potatoes and lemon and make some +drawn butter sauce to pour over it and bring it to you in twenty minutes. +If he didn't think so he would not be a waiter. An architect is exactly +like a waiter, except that he thinks in terms of days instead of terms of +minutes. Don't tell me about architects! I only wish I were as sure of +heaven as the average architect is regarding that which no mortal possibly +can be sure of, labor conditions being what chronically they are.” + </p> +<p> +But conceded that the reader is but a humble husbandman—meaning by +that a man who is married—he doubtless has already figured out the +result of this debate. Himself, he knows how such debates usually do +terminate. In the end I surrendered, and the final upshot was that we set +about the task of furnishing the rooms that were to be. From that hour +dated the beginning of my wider and fuller education into the system +commonly in vogue these times in or near the larger cities along our +Atlantic seaboard for the furnishing of homes. I have learned though. It +has cost me a good deal of time and some money and my nervous system is +not what it was, having suffered a series of abrupt shocks, but I have +learned. I know something now—not much, but a little—about +period furniture. +</p> +<p> +A period, as you may recall, is equal to a full stop; in fact a period is +a full stop. This is a rule in punctuation which applies in other +departments of life, as I have discovered. Go in extensively for the +period stuff in your interior equipments and presently you will be coming +to a full stop in your funds on hand. The thing works out the same way +every time. I care not how voluminously large and plethoric your cash +balance may be, period furniture carried to an excess will convert it into +a recent site and then the bank will be sending you one of those little +printed notices politely intimating that “your account appears overdrawn.” + And any time a banker goes so far as to hint that your account appears +overdrawn you may bet the last cent you haven't left that he is correct. +He knows darned good and well it is overdrawn and this merely is his +kindly way of softening the blow to you. +</p> +<p> +I have a theory that when checks begin to roll in from the clearing house +made out to this or that dealer in period furniture the paying teller +hastens to the adjusting department to see how your deposits seem to be +bearing up under the strain. It is as though he heard you were buying oil +stocks or playing the races out of your savings and he might as well begin +figuring now about how long approximately it will be before your account +will become absolutely vacant in appearance. +</p> +<p> +As I was remarking, I know a trifle about period furniture. Offhand now, I +can distinguish a piece which dates back to Battle Abbey from something +which goes back no farther than Battle Creek. Before I could not do this. +I was forever getting stuff of the time of the Grand Monarch confused with +something right fresh out of Grand Rapids. Generally speaking, all +antiques—whether handed down from antiquity or made on the premises—looked +alike to me. But in the light of my painfully acquired knowledge I now can +see the difference almost at a glance. Sometimes I may waver a trifle. I +look at a piece of furniture which purports to be an authentic antique. It +is decrepit and creaky and infirm; the upholstering is frayed and faded +and stained; the legs are splayed and tottery; the seams gape and there +are cracks in the paneling. If it is a chair, no plump person in his or +her right mind would dare sit down in it. If it is a bedstead, any sizable +adult undertaking to sleep in it would do so at his peril. So, outwardly +and visibly it seems to bear the stamp of authenticity. Yet still I doubt. +It may be a craftily devised counterfeit. It may be something of +comparatively recent manufacture which has undergone careless handling. In +such a case I seek for the wormholes—if any—the same as any +other seasoned collector would. +</p> +<p> +Up until comparatively recently wormholes, considered as such, had no +great lure to me. If I thought of them at all I thought of them as a topic +which was rather lacking in interest to begin with and one easily +exhausted. If you had asked me about wormholes I—speaking offhand—probably +would say that this was a matter which naturally might appeal to a worm +but would probably hold forth no great attraction for a human being, +unless he happened to be thinking of going fishing. But this was in my +more ignorant, cruder days, before I took a beginner's easy course in the +general science of wormholes. I am proud of my progress, but I would not +go so far just yet as to say that I am a professional. Still I am out of +the amateur class. I suppose you might call me a semi-pro, able under +ordinary circumstances to do any given wormhole in par. +</p> +<p> +For example, at present I have an average of three correct guesses out of +five chances—which is a very high average for one who but a little +while ago was the veriest novice at distinguishing between ancient +wormholes, as made by a worm, and modern wormholing done by piece-work. I +cannot explain to you just how I do this—it is a thing which after a +while just seems to come to you. But of course you must have a natural +gift for it to start with—an inherent affinity for wormholes, as it +were. +</p> +<p> +However, I will say that I did not thoroughly master the cardinal +principles of this art until after I had studied under one of the leading +wormhole experts in this country—a man who has devoted years of his +life just to wormholes. True, like most great specialists he is a person +of one idea. Get him off of wormholes and the conversation is apt to drag, +but discussing his own topic he can go on for hours and hours. I really +believe he gets more pleasure out of one first-class, sixteenth-century +wormhole than the original worm did. And as Kipling would say: I learned +about wormholes from him. +</p> +<p> +At the outset I must confess I rather leaned toward a nice, neat, +up-to-date wormhole as produced amid sanitary surroundings in an inspected +factory out in Michigan, where no scab wormholes would be tolerated, +rather than toward one which had been done by an unorganized foreign worm—possibly +even a pauperized worm—two or three hundred years ago, when there +was no such thing as a closed shop and no protection against germs. +Whenever possible I believe in patronizing the products of union labor. +But the expert speedily set me right on this point. He made me see that in +furnishings and decorations nothing modern can possibly compare with +something which is crumbly and tottery with the accumulated weight of the +hoary years. +</p> +<p> +He taught me about patina, too. Patina is a most fascinating subject, once +you get thoroughly into it. Everybody who goes in for period furniture +must get into it sooner or later, and the sooner the better, because if +you are not able to recognize patina at a glance you are as good as lost +when you undertake to appraise antique furniture. When a connoisseur lays +hold upon a piece of furniture al-leged to have rightful claims to +antiquity the first thing he does is to run his hand along the exposed +surfaces to ascertain by the practiced touch of his fingers whether the +patina is on the level or was applied by a crafty counterfeiter. After +that he upends it to look for the wormholes. If both are orthodox he gives +it his validation as the genuine article. If they are not he brands the +article a spurious imitation and rejects it with ill-concealed scorn. +There are other tests, but these two are the surest ones. +</p> +<p> +For the benefit of those who may not have had any advantages as recently +and expensively enjoyed I will state that patina is the gloss or film +which certain sorts of metal and certain sorts of polished woods acquire +through age, long usage and wear. With the passage of time fabrics also +may acquire it. You may have noticed it in connection with a pair of black +diagonal trousers that had seen long and severe wear or on the elbows of +summer-before-last's blue serge coat. However, patina in pants or on the +braided seams of a presiding elder's Sunday suit is not so highly valued +as when it occurs in relation to a Jacobean church pew or a +William-and-Mary what-not. +</p> +<p> +When I look back on my untutored state before we began to patronize the +antique shops and the auction shops I am ashamed—honestly I am. The +only excuse I can offer is based on the grounds of my earlier training. +Like so many of my fellow countrymen, born and reared as I was in the +crude raw atmosphere of interior America—anyhow, almost any wealthy +New Yorker will tell you it is a crude raw atmosphere and not in any way +to be compared with the refined atmosphere which is about the only thing +you can get for nothing in Europe—as I say, brought up as I was amid +such raw surroundings and from the cradle made the unconscious victim of +this environment, I had an idea that when a person craved furniture he +went for it to a regular furniture store having ice boxes and porch +hammocks and unparalleled bargains in golden oak dining-room sets in the +show windows, and there he made his selection and gave his order and paid +a deposit down and the people at the shop sent it up to his house in a +truck with historic scenes such as Washington Crossing the Delaware and +Daniel in the Lions' Den painted on the sides of the truck, and after that +he had nothing to worry about in connection with the transaction except +the monthly installments. +</p> +<p> +You see, I date back to the Rutherford B. Hayes period of American +architecture and applied designing—-a period which had a solid +background of mid-Victorian influence with a trace of Philadelphia +Centennial running through it, being bounded at the farther end by such +sterling examples of parlor statuary as the popular pieces respectively +entitled, “Welcoming the New Minister,” “Bringing Home the Bride,” and +“Baby's First Bath,” and bounded at the nearer end by burnt-wood plaques +and frames for family portraits with plush insets and hand-painted flowers +on the moldings. By the conceptions of those primitive times nothing so +set off the likeness of a departed great-aunt as a few red-plush insets. +</p> +<p> +Some of my most cherished boyhood memories centered about bird's-eye-maple +bedroom sets and parlor furniture of heavy black walnut trimmed in a +manner which subsequently came to be popular among undertakers for the +adornment of the casket when they had orders to spare no expense for a +really fashionable or—as the saying went then—a tony funeral. +Tony subsequently became nobby and nobby is now swagger, but though the +idioms change with the years the meaning remains the same. When the parlor +was opened for a formal occasion—it remained closed while the +ordinary life of the household went on—its interior gave off a rich +deep turpentiny smell like a paint-and-varnish store on a hot day. And the +bird's-eye maple, as I recall, had a high slick finish which, however, did +not dim the staring, unwinking effect of the round knots which so +plentifully dappled its graining. Lying on the bed and contemplating the +footboard gave one the feeling that countless eyes were looking at one, +which in those days was regarded as highly desirable. +</p> +<p> +I remember all our best people favored bird's-eye maple for the company +room. They clung to it, too. East Aurora had a hard struggle before it +made any noticeable impress upon the decorative tendencies of West +Kentucky, for we were a conservative breed and slow to take up the mission +styles featuring armchairs weighing a couple of hundred pounds apiece and +art-craft designs in hammered metals and semi-tanned leathers. Moreover, a +second-hand shop in our town was not an antique shop; it was what its name +implied—a second-hand shop. You didn't go there to buy things you +wanted, but to sell things you did not want. +</p> +<p> +So in view of these youthful influences it should be patent to all that, +having other things to think of—such, for example, as making a +living—I did not realize that in New York at least those wishful of +following the modes did not go to a good live shop making a specialty of +easy payments when they had a house-furnishing proposition on their hands. +That might be all very well for the pedestrian classes and for those +living in the remote districts who kept a mail-order catalogue on the +center table and wrote on from time to time with the money order enclosed. +</p> +<p> +I soon was made to understand that the really correct thing was first of +all to call in a professional decorator, if one could afford it. A +professional decorator is a person of either sex who can think up more +ways and quicker ways of spending other people's money than the director +of a shipping board can. But whether you retained the services of a +regular decorator or elected to struggle along on your own, you went for +your purchases to specialty shops or to antique shops, or—best of +all—to the smart auction shops on or hard by Fifth Avenue and +Madison Avenue. +</p> +<p> +Than the auction rooms in the Fifth Avenue district I know of no places +better adapted for studying patina, wormholing and human nature in a +variety of interesting phases. To such an establishment, on the days when +a sale is announced—which means two or three times a week for a good +part of the year—repair wealthy patrons, patrons who were wealthy +before the mania for bidding in things came upon them, as it does come +upon so many, and patrons who are trying to look as though they were +wealthy. The third group are in the majority. +</p> +<p> +Amateur collectors come, on the lookout for lace fans or Japanese bronzes +or Chinese ceramics or furniture or pictures or hangings or rugs or +tapestries, or whatever it is that constitutes their favorite hobby. There +are sure to be prominent actor folk and author folk in this category. +Dealers are on hand, each as wise looking as a barnful of hoot-owls and +talking the jargon of the craft. +</p> +<p> +Agents from rival auction houses are sometimes seen, ready, should the +opportunity present itself, to snap up a bargain with intent to reauction +it at their own houses at a profit. With the resident proprietor one of +this gentry is about as popular as a bat in a boarding school, but since +there is no law to bar him out and since it is in the line of business for +him to be present, why present he generally is. +</p> +<p> +Rich women drive up in their town cars and shabby purveyors of antique +wares from little clutter-hole shops on cross streets at the fringe of the +East Side shamble in on their fiat arches. Then, too, there are the +habitués of the auction room habit; women mostly, but some men too, +unfortunate creatures who have fallen victim to an incurable vice and to +whom the announcement in the papers of an unusual sale is lure sufficient +to draw them hither whether or not they hope to buy anything; and finally +there are representatives of a common class in any big city—individuals +who go wherever free entertainment is provided and especially to spots +where they are likely to see assembled notables of the stage or society or +of high financial circles. +</p> +<p> +The auctioneer almost invariably is of a compounded and composite type +that might be described as part matinée idol, part professional +revivalist, part floor walker, part court jester and part jury pleader, +with just a trace of a suggestion of the official manner of the well-to-do +undertaker stirred into the mixture. By sight at least he knows all of his +regular customers and is inclined with a special touch of respectful +affection toward such of them as prefer on these occasions to be known by +an initial rather than by name. +</p> +<p> +“And sold to Mr. B.,” he says with a gracious smile. Or—“Now then, +Mrs. H., doesn't this bea-u-tiful varse mean anything to you?” he inquires +deferentially when the bidding lags. “Did I hear you offer seven hundred +and fifty, Colonel J.?” he asks in a tone of deep solicitude. +</p> +<p> +By long acquaintance with his regular clientèle, or perhaps by a sort of +intuition which is not the least of his gifts, he is able to interpret +into sums of currency a nod, a wink, a raised finger, a shrug or the lift +of an eyebrow, at a distance of anywhere from ten to sixty feet. +</p> +<p> +In the face of disappointments manifolded a thousand times a month this +man yet remains an unfailing optimist. Watching him in action one gets the +impression that he reads none but glad books, goes to none save glad plays +and when the weather is inclement shares the viewpoint of that sweet +singer of the Sunny South who wrote to the effect that it is not raining +rain to-day, it's raining daffodils, and then two lines further along +corrects his botany to state that having been convinced of his error of a +moment before he now wishes to take advantage of this opportunity to +inform the public that it is not raining rain to-day, but on the contrary +is raining roses down, or metrical words to that general tenor. He was a +good poet, as poets go, but not the sort of person you would care to loan +your best umbrella to. +</p> +<p> +In another noticeable regard our auctioneer friend betrays somewhat the +same abrupt shiftings of temperamental manifestations that are reputed to +have been shown by Ben Bolt's lady friend. I am speaking of the late +lamented Sweet Alice, who—as will be recalled—would weep with +delight when you gave her a smile, but trembled with fear at your frown. +Apparently Alice couldn't help behaving in this curious way—one +gathers that she must have been the village idiot, harmless enough but +undoubtedly an annoying sort of person to have hanging round, weeping +copiously whenever anybody else was cheerful, and perhaps immediately +afterward trembling in a disconcerting sort of way. She must have spoiled +many a pleasant party in her day, so probably it was just as well that the +community saw fit to file her away in the old churchyard in the obscure +corner mentioned more or less rhythmically in the disclosures recorded as +having been made to Mr. Bolt upon the occasion of his return to his native +shire after what presumably had been a considerable absence. +</p> +<p> +The poet chronicler, Mr. English, is a trifle vague on this point, but +considering everything it is but fair to infer that Alice's funeral was +practically by acclamation. Beyond question it must have been a relief to +all concerned, including the family of deceased, to feel that a person so +grievously afflicted mentally was at last permanently planted under a +certain slab of stone rather loosely described in the conversation just +referred to as granite so gray. One wishes Mr. English had been a trifle +more exact in furnishing the particular details of this sad case. Still, I +suppose it is hard for a poet to be technical and poetical at the same +time. And though he failed to go into particulars I am quite sure that +when asked if he didn't remember Alice, Mr. Bolt answered in the decided +affirmative. It is a cinch he couldn't have forgotten her, the official +half-wit and lightning-change artist of the county. +</p> +<p> +But whereas this unfortunate young woman's conduct may only be accounted +for on the grounds of a total irresponsibility, there is method behind the +same sharply contrasted shift of mood as displayed by the chief salesman +of the auction room. He is thrilled—visibly and physically thrilled—at +each rapidly recurring opportunity of presenting an article for disposal +to the highest bidder; hardly can he control his emotions of joy at the +prospect of offering this particular object to an audience of +discriminating tastes and balanced judgment. But mark the change: How +instantly, how completely does a devastating and poignant distress +overcome him when his hearers perversely decline to enter into spirited +competition for a thing so priceless! A sob rises in his throat, choking +his utterance to a degree where it becomes impossible for him to speak +more than three or four hundred words per minute; grief dims his eye; +regret—not on his own account but for others—droops his +shoulders. When it comes to showing distress he makes that poor +feeble-minded Alice girl look like a beginner. Yet repeated shocks of this +character fail to daunt the sunniness of his true nature. The harder his +spirits are dashed down to earth the greater the resiliency and the +buoyancy with which they bounce up again. The man has a soul of new +rubber! +</p> +<p> +Let us draw near and scrutinize the scene that unfolds itself at each +presentation: The attendants fetch out an offering described in the +printed catalogue, let us say, as Number 77 A: Oriental Lamp with Silk +Shade. Reverently they place it upon a velvet-covered stand in a space at +the back end of the salesroom, where a platform is inclosed in draperies +with lights so disposed overhead and in the wings as to shed a soft +radiance upon the inclosed area. The helpers fade out of the picture +respectfully. A tiny pause ensues; this stage wait has been skillfully +timed; a suitable atmosphere subtly has been created. Oh, believe me, in +New York we do these things with a proper regard for the dramatic values—culture +governs all! +</p> +<p> +The withdrawal of the attendants is the cue for our sunny friend, perched +up as he is behind his little pulpit with his little gavel in his hand, to +fall gracefully into a posture bespeaking in every curve of it a +worshipful, almost an idolatrous admiration. +</p> +<p> +“And now, ladies and gentlemen”—hear him say it—“I have the +pleasure and the privilege of submitting for your approval one of the +absolute gems of this splendid collection. A magnificent example of the +Ming period—mind you, a genuine Ming. I am confidentially informed +by the executors of the estate of the late Mr. Gezinks, the former owner +of these wonderful belongings, that it was the prize piece of his entire +collection. Look at the color—just look at the shape! Worth a +thousand dollars if it is worth a cent. Try to buy it in one of the +antique shops round the corner for that—just try, that's all I ask +you to do. Now then”—this with a cheery, inviting, confident smile—“now +then, what am I offered? Who'll start it off at five hundred?” + </p> +<p> +There is no answer. A look of surprise not unmixed with chagrin crosses +his mobile countenance. From his play of expression you feel that what he +feels, underlying his other feelings, is a sympathy for people so blinded +to their own good luck as not to leap headlong and en masse at this +unparalleled chance. +</p> +<p> +“Tut tut!” he exclaims and again, “tut tut! Very well, then,”—his +tone is resigned—“do I hear four hundred and seventy-five—four +hundred and fifty? Who'll start it at four twenty-five?” + </p> +<p> +His gaze sweeps the faces of the assemblage. It is a compelling gaze, +indeed you might say mes-meristic. There is a touch of pathos in it, +though, an unuttered appeal to the gathering to consider its own several +interests. +</p> +<p> +“Do I hear four hundred?” He speaks of four hundred as an ostrich might +speak of a tomtit's egg—as something comparatively insignificant and +puny. +</p> +<p> +“Twenty dollars!” pipes a voice. +</p> +<p> +He clasps his hand to his brow. This is too much; it is much too much. But +business is business. He rallies; he smiles bitterly, wanly. His soul +within him is crushed and bruised, but he rallies. Rallying is one of the +best things he does and one of the most frequent. The bidding livens, +slackens, lags, then finally ceases. With a gesture betokening utter +despair, with lineaments bathed in the very waters of woe, he +heart-brokenly knocks the vase down to somebody for $88.50. +</p> +<p> +But by the time the hired men have fetched forth Lot 78 he miraculously +has recovered his former confidence and for the forty-oddth time since two +o'clock—it is now nearly three forty-five—is his old cheerful +beaming self. Thirty seconds later his heart has been broken in a fresh +place; yet we may be sure that to-morrow morning when he rises he will be +whistling a merry roundelay, his faith in the innate goodness of human +nature all made new and fully restored to him. He would make a perfectly +bully selection if you were sending a messenger to a home to break to an +unsuspecting household some such tragic tidings, say; as that the head of +the family, while rounding a turn on high, had skidded and was now being +removed from the front elevation of an adjacent brick wall with a putty +knife. If example counted for anything at all, he would have the mourners +all cheered up again and the females among them discussing the most +becoming modes in black crepe in less than no time at all. +</p> +<p> +My, my, but how my sense of understanding did broaden under the influence +of the auction sales we attended through the spring and on into the +Summer. When the morning paper came we would turn to the advertising +section and look for auction announcements. If there was to be one, and +generally there was—one or more—we canceled all other plans +and attended. Going to auctions became our regular employment, our +pastime, our entertainment. It became our obsession. It almost became our +joint calling in life. To our besetting mania we sacrificed all else. +</p> +<p> +I remember there was one afternoon when John McCormack was billed to sing. +I am very fond of hearing John McCormack. For one thing, he generally +sings in a language which I can understand, and for another, I like his +way of singing. He sings very much as I would sing if I had decided to +take up singing for a living instead of writing. This is only one of the +sacrifices I have made for the sake of English literature. +</p> +<p> +McCormack that day had to struggle through without me. Because there was a +sale of Italian antiques billed for three p. m., and we were going to have +an Italian hall and an Italian living room in the new house, and we felt +it to be our bounden duty to attend. +</p> +<p> +It took some time and considerable work on the part of those fitted to +guide me in the matter of decorations before I fell entirely into the idea +of an Italian room, this possibly being due to the fact that I was born so +far away from Italy and passed through childhood with so few Italian +influences coming into my life. Even now I balk at the idea of hanging any +faded red-silk stoles or copes, or whatever those ecclesiastical garments +are, on my walls. I reserve the right to admire such a vestment when it is +worn by the officiating cleric at church, but for the life of me and +despite all that has repeatedly been said to me on the subject I fail to +see where it belongs in a simple household as a part of the scheme of +ornamentation. +</p> +<p> +I do not think it proper to display a strange clergyman's cast-off costume +in my little home any more than I would expect the canon of a cathedral to +let me hang up a pair of my old overalls in his cathedral. Nor—if I +must confess it—have I felt myself greatly drawn to the suggestion +that we should have a lot of tall hand-painted candles sitting or standing +round in odd spots. I mean those candlesticks which are painted in faded +colors, with touches of dull gilt here and there on them and which are +called after a lady named Polly Crome—their original inventor, I +suppose she was, though her name does sound more as if Arnold Bennett had +written her than as if she were a native Italian. I imagine she thought up +this idea of a hand-painted candlestick nine feet tall and eighteen inches +through at the base, and then in her honor the design was called after +her, which in my humble opinion was compounding one mistake on top of +another. Likewise I fear that I shall never become entirely reconciled to +these old-model Italian chairs. My notion of a chair is something on which +a body can sit for as long as half an hour without anesthetics. In most +other details concerning antique furniture they have made a true believer +out of me, but as regards chairs I am still some distance from being +thoroughly converted. In chairs I favor a chair that is willing to meet +you halfway, as it were, in an effort to be mutually comfortable. The +other kind—the kind with a hard flat wooden seat and short legs and +a stiff high back, a chair which looks as though originally it had been +designed to be used by a clown dog in a trained animal act—may be +artistic and beautiful in the chasteness of its lines and all this and +that; but as for me, I say give me the kind of chair that has fewer +admirers and more friends in the fireside circle. I take it that the early +Italians were not a sedentary race. They could not have figured on staying +long in one place. +</p> +<p> +I suppose the trouble with me is that I was born and brought up on the +American plan and have never entirely got over it. In fact I was told as +much, though not perhaps in exactly those words, when antiques first +became a vital issue in our domestic life. In no uncertain terms I was +informed that everybody who is anybody goes in for the Italian these +times. I believe the only conspicuous exceptions to the rule are the +Italians who have emigrated to these shores. They, it would appear, are +amply satisfied with American fixtures and fittings. I have a suspicion +that possibly some of them in coming hither may have been actuated by a +desire to get as far away as possible from those medieval effects in +plumbing which seem to be inseparable from Old World architecture. +</p> +<p> +My education progressed another step forward on the occasion of my first +visit to an auction room where presumably desirable pieces of Italian +workmanship were displayed as a preliminary to their being disposed of by +public outcry. I was accompanied by a friend—the wormholeist already +mentioned—and when he lapsed into rhapsodies over a pair of gilt +mirrors, or rather mirrors which once upon a time, say about the time of +the Fall of the Roman Empire, had been gilded, I was astonished. +</p> +<p> +“Surely,” I said, “nobody would want those things. See where the glass is +flawed—the quicksilver must be pretty nearly all gone from the backs +of them. And the molding is falling off in chunks and what molding is left +is so dingy and stained that it doesn't look like anything at all. If +you're asking me, I'd call those mirrors a couple of total losses.” + </p> +<p> +“Exactly!” he said. “That is precisely what makes them so desirable. You +can't counterfeit such age as these things show, my boy.” + </p> +<p> +“I shouldn't care to try,” I said. “Where I came from, when a mirror got +in such shape that you couldn't see yourself in it it was just the same to +us as a chorus girl that had both legs cut off in a railroad accident—it +was regarded as having lost most of its practical use in life. Still, it +is not for me, a raw green novice, a sub-novice as you might say, to set +myself up against an expert like you. Anyhow, as the fellow said, live and +learn. Let us move along to the next display of moldy remains.” + </p> +<p> +We did so. We came to a refectory table. Ordinarily a refectory table +mainly differs in outline from the ordinary dining table by being +constructed on the model of a dachshund. But this table, I should guess +offhand, had seen about four centuries of good hard steady refecting at +the hands of succeeding generations of careless but earnest feeders. Its +top was chipped and marred by a million scars, more or less. Its legs were +scored and worn down. Its seams gaped. From sheer weakness it canted far +down to one side. The pressure of a hand upon it set the poor, slanted, +crippled wreck to shaking as though along with all its other infirmities +it had a touch of buck ague. +</p> +<p> +“What about this incurable invalid?” I asked. “Unless the fellow who buys +it sends it up in a padded ambulance it'll be hard to get it home all in +one piece. I suppose that makes it all the more valuable, eh?” + </p> +<p> +“Absolutely!” he said. “It's a perfectly marvelous thing! I figure it +should bring at least six hundred dollars.” + </p> +<p> +“And cheap enough,” I said. “Why, it must have at least six hundred +dollars' worth of things the matter with it. A good cabinet-maker could +put in a nice busy month just patching—” + </p> +<p> +“You don't understand,” he said. “You surely wouldn't touch it?” + </p> +<p> +“I shouldn't dare to,” I said. “I was speaking of a regular cabinet-maker. +No green hand should touch it—he'd have it all in chunks in no +time.” + </p> +<p> +“But the main value of it lies in leaving it in its present shape,” he +told me. “Don't you realize that this is a condition which could never be +duplicated by a workman?” + </p> +<p> +“Well, I've seen some house wreckers in my time who could produce a pretty +fair imitation,” I retorted playfully. I continued in a musing vein, for +the sight of that hopelessly damaged wreck all worn down and dented in and +slivered off had sent my mind backward to a memory of early childhood. I +said: +</p> +<p> +“I can see now how my parents made a mistake in stopping me from doing +something I tackled when I was not more than six years old. I was an +antiquer, but I didn't know it and they didn't know it. They thought that +I was damaging the furniture, when as a matter of fact in my happy, +innocent, childish way I was adding touches to it which would have been +worth considerable money by now.” + </p> +<p> +What I was thinking of was this: On my sixth birthday, I think it was, an +uncle of mine for whom I was named gave me a toy tool chest containing a +complete outfit of tools. There was a miniature hammer and a plane and a +set of wooden vises and a gimlet and the rest of the things which belong +in a carpenter's kit, but the prize of the entire collection to my way of +thinking was a cross-cut saw measuring about eight inches from tip to tip. +</p> +<p> +Armed with this saw, I went round sawing things, or rather trying to. I +could not exactly saw with it, but I could haggle the edges and corners of +wood, producing a gnawed, frazzled effect. My quest for stuff suitable to +exercise my handicraft on led me into the spare, or company room, where I +found material to my liking. I was raking away at the legs of a rosewood +center table—had one leg pretty well damaged to my liking and was +preparing to start on another—when some officious grown person +happened in on me and stopped me with violent words. If I had but been +left undisturbed for half an hour or so I doubtless would have achieved a +result which now after a lapse of thirty-odd years would have thrilled a +lover of antiques to the core of his being. But this was not to be. +</p> +<p> +My present recollection of the incident is that I was chided in a painful +physical way. The latter-day system of inculcating lessons in the mind of +the child according to a printed form chart of soothing words was not +known in our community at that time. The old-fashioned method of using the +back of a hairbrush and imparting the lesson at the other end of the child +from where the mind is and letting it travel all the way through him was +employed. I was then ordered to go outdoors where there would be fewer +opportunities for engaging in what adults mistakenly called mischief. +</p> +<p> +Regretting that the nurse that morning had seen fit to encase me in +snug-fitting linen breeches instead of woolen ones, I wandered about +carrying my saw in one hand and with the other hand from time to time +rubbing a certain well-defined area of my small person to allay the +afterglow. In the barnyard I came upon an egg lying on the edge of a mud +puddle under the protecting lee of the chicken-yard fence. I can shut my +eyes and see that egg right now. It was rather an abandoned-looking egg, +stained and blotched with brownish-yellow spots. It had the look about it +of an egg with a past—a fallen egg, as you might say. +</p> +<p> +Some impulse moved me to squat down and draw the toothed blade of my saw +thwartwise across the bulge of that egg. For the first time in my little +life I was about to have dealings with a genuine antique, but naturally at +my age and with my limited experience I did not realize that. Probably I +was actuated only by a desire to find out whether I could saw right +through the shell of an egg amidships. That phase of the proceedings is +somewhat blurred in my mind, though the dénouement remains a vivid memory +spot to this very day. +</p> +<p> +I imparted a brisk raking movement to the saw. It is my distinct +recollection that a fairly loud explosion immediately occurred. I was +greatly shocked. One too young to know aught of the chemical effect on the +reactions following the admission of fresh air to gaseous matter, which +has been forming to the fulminating point within a tightly sealed casing, +would naturally be shocked to have an egg go off suddenly in that violent +manner. Modern military science, I suppose, would classify it as having +been a contact egg. +</p> +<p> +Not only was I badly shocked, but also I had a profound conviction that in +some way I had been taken advantage of—that my confidence had in +some strange fashion been betrayed. I left my saw where I had dropped it. +At the moment I felt that never again would I care to have anything to do +with a tool so dangerous. I also left the immediate vicinity of where the +accident had occurred and for some minutes wandered about in rather a +distracted fashion. There did not seem to be any place in particular for +me to go, and yet I could not bear to stay wherever I was. I wished, as it +were, to get entirely away from myself—a morbid fancy perhaps for a +mere six-year-old to be having, and yet, I think, a natural one under the +circumstances. +</p> +<p> +I had a conviction that I would not be welcomed indoors and at the same +time realized that even out in the great open where I could get air—and +air was what I especially craved—I was likely to be shunned by such +persons as I might accidentally encounter. Indeed I rather shunned myself, +if you get what I mean. I was filled with a general shunning sensation. I +felt mortified, too. And this emotion, I found a few minutes later, was +shared by the black cook, who, issuing from the kitchen door, happened +upon me in the act of endeavoring to freshen up myself somewhat from a +barrel of rain water which stood under the eaves. She evidently decided +offhand that not only had mortification set in but that it had reached an +advanced stage. Her language so indicated. +</p> +<p> +And now, after more than three and a half decades, here on Fifth Avenue +more than a thousand miles remote from those infantile scenes, I was +gleaning another memorable lesson about antiques. I was learning that junk +ceases to be junk if only it costs enough money, and thereafter becomes +treasure. +</p> +<p> +Having had this great principal fact firmly implanted in my consciousness, +I shortly thereafter embarked in congenial company upon the auction-room +life upon which already I have touched. We went to sales when we had +anything to buy and when we had nothing to buy—somehow we did not +seem to be able to stay away. The joy of bidding a thing up and maybe of +having it knocked down to us undermined our pooled will power; it weakened +our joint resistance. +</p> +<p> +“And sold to——” became our slogan, our shibboleth and our most +familiar sentence. By day we heard it, by night it dinned in our ears as +we slept, dreaming dreams of going bankrupt in this mad, delirious pursuit +which had mastered us and spending our last days in a poorhouse entirely +furnished in Italian antiques. +</p> +<p> +But taking everything into consideration, I must say the game was worth +the candle. By degrees we acquired the furnishings for our two Italian +rooms and our other rooms—which, thank heaven, are not Italian but +what you might call fancy-mixed! And by degrees likewise I perfected my +artistic education. Of course we made mistakes in selection, as who does +not? We have a few auction-room skeletons tucked away in our closet, or to +speak more exactly, in the attic of the new house. But in the main we are +satisfied with what we have done and no doubt will continue to be until +Italian-style furniture goes out and Aztec Indian or Peruvian Inca or +Thibetan Grand Llama or some other style comes in. +</p> +<p> +And when our friends drop in for an evening we talk decorations and +furnishings—it is a subject which never wears out. Mostly the women +callers favor discussions of tapestries and brocades with intervals spent +in fits of mutual wonder over the terrible taste shown by some other woman—not +present—in buying the stuff for her house; and the men are likely to +be interested in carvings or paintings; but my strong suit is wormholing +in all its branches—that and patina. I am very strong on the latter +subject, also. In fact among friends I am now getting to be known as the +Patina Kid. +</p> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER VIII, THE ADVENTURE OF LADY MAUDE +</h2> +<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> have dealt at length with our adventures at Fifth Avenue auction houses +when we were amassing the furnishings for our Italian rooms and our +Italian hallway. But I forgot to make mention of the many friends we +encountered at the salesrooms—people who always before had seemed to +us entirely normal, but now were plainly to be recognized for devotees of +the same passion for bidding-in which had lain its insidious clutches upon +us. I recall one victim in particular, a young woman whom I shall call +Maude because that happens to be her name. +</p> +<p> +Theretofore this Maude lady had impressed mo as being one of the sanest, +most competent females of my entire acquaintance—good-looking, witty +and with a fine sense of proportion. Yet behold, here she was, balanced on +the edge of a folding chair in an overheated, overcrowded room, her eyes +feverish with a fanatical light, a printed catalogue clutched in her left +hand and her right ready to go up in signal to the hypnotic gentleman on +the auctioneer's block. At a glance we knew the symptoms because in them +we saw duplicated our own. We knew exactly what ailed her: She was bidding +on various articles, not because she particularly wanted them, but because +she feared unless she bought them some stranger might. +</p> +<p> +After the sale had ended and her excitement—and ours—had +abated we exchanged confidences touching on our besetting mania. +</p> +<p> +“Just coming and buying something that I wish afterward I hadn't bought +isn't the worst of it,” she owned. “That is destructive only to my +spending allowance. My chief trouble is that I've gotten so I can't bear +to think of spending my afternoons anywhere except at this place or one of +the places like it. And if there happen to be two sales going the same day +at different shops I'm perfectly miserable. All the time I'm sitting in +one I'm distracted by the thought that possibly I'm missing some perfectly +wonderful bargain at the other. Sometimes I suspect that my intellect is +beginning to give way under the strain, and then again I'm sure I'm on the +verge of a nervous breakdown. My husband has his own diagnosis. He says +I'm just plain nutty, as he vulgarly expresses it. He has taken to calling +me Nutchita, which he says is Spanish for a little nut. You know since +Scott came back from South America he just adores to show off the Spanish +he learned. He loves to tell how he went to a bull fight down there and +saw the gallant mandatory stab the charging parabola to the heart with his +shining bolero or whatever you call it. +</p> +<p> +“He says there is no hope of curing me and he appreciates the fact that +teams of horses couldn't drag me away from these auction rooms, but he +suggested that maybe we might be saved from spending our last days at the +almshouse if before I started out on my mad career each afternoon I'd get +somebody to muffle me and tie my arms fast so I couldn't bid on anything. +But even if I couldn't speak or gesticulate I could still nod, so I +suppose that wouldn't help. Besides, as I said to him, I would probably +attract a good deal of attention riding down Fifth Avenue with my hands +tied behind my back and a gag in my mouth. But he says he'd much rather I +were made conspicuous now than that I should be even more conspicuous +later on at a feeble-minded institute; he says they'd probably keep me in +a strait-jacket anyhow after I reached the violent stage and that I might +as well begin getting used to the feeling now. +</p> +<p> +“All joking aside, though, I really did have a frightful experience last +winter,” she continued. “There was a sale of desirable household effects +advertised to take place up at Blank's on West Forty-fifth Street and of +course I went. I've spent so much of my time at Blank's these last few +months I suppose people are beginning to think I live there. Well, anyway, +I was one of the first arrivals and just as I got settled the auctioneer +put up a basket; a huge, fiat, curious-looking, wickerwork affair, it was. +You never in all your life saw such a basket! It was too big for a +soiled-clothes hamper and besides wasn't the right shape. And it was too +flat to store things in and it didn't have any top on it either. I suppose +you would just call it a kind of a basket. +</p> +<p> +“Well, the man put it up and asked for bids on it, but nobody bid; and +then the auctioneer looked right at me in an appealing sort of way—I +feel that everybody connected with the shop is an old friend of mine by +now, and especially the auctioneer—so when he looked in my direction +with that yearning expression in his eye I bid a dollar just to start it +off for him. And what do you think? Before you could say scat he'd knocked +it down to me for a dollar. I just hate people who catch you up suddenly +that way! It discouraged me so that after that the sale was practically +spoiled for me. I didn't have the courage to bid on another thing the +whole afternoon. +</p> +<p> +“When the sale was over I went back to the packing room to get a good look +at what I'd bought. And, my dear, what do you suppose? I hadn't bought a +single basket—that would have been bad enough—but no. I'd +bought a job lot, comprising the original basket and its twin sister that +was exactly like it, only homelier if anything, and on top of that an +enormous square wooden box painted a bright green with a great lock +fastening the lid down. That wretch of an auctioneer had deliberately +taken a shameful advantage of me. How was I to know I was bidding in a +whole wagonload of trash? Obtaining money under false pretenses, that's +what I call it. +</p> +<p> +“Well, I stood aghast—or perhaps I should say I leaned aghast, +because the shock was so great I felt I had to prop myself up against +something. Why, the box alone must have weighed a hundred and fifty +pounds. It didn't seem to be the sort of box you could put anything in +either. It wouldn't do for a wood box or a coal box or a dog house or +anything. It was just as useless as the baskets were, and they were +nothing more nor less than two orders of willow-ware on the half shell. +Even if they had been of any earthly use, what could I do with them in the +tiny three-room apartment that we were occupying last winter? Isn't it +perfectly shameful the way these auction-room people impose on the public? +They don't make any exceptions either. Here was I, a regular customer, and +just see what they had done to me, all because I'm so good-natured and +sympathetic. I declare sometimes I'm ready to take a solemn oath I'll +never do another favor for anybody so long as I live. It's the selfish +ones who get along in this world! +</p> +<p> +“Well, when I realized what a scandalous trick had been played on me I was +seized with a wild desire to get away. I decided I would try to slip out. +But the manager had his eye on me. You know the rule they have: 'Claim all +purchases and arrange for their removal before leaving premises, otherwise +goods will be stored at owner's risk and cost.' And he called me back and +told me my belongings were ready to be taken away and would I kindly get +them out of the house at once because they took up so much room. Room? +They took up all the room there was. You had to step into one of the +baskets to get into the place and climb over the box to get out again. +</p> +<p> +“I asked him how I was going to get those things up to my address and he +suggested a taxi. I told him I would just run out and find a taxi, +meaning, of course, to forget to come back. But he told me not to bother +because there was a taxi at the door that had been ordered to come for +somebody else and then wasn't needed. And before I could think up any +other excuse to escape he'd called the taxi driver in. And the taxi man +took one look at my collection of junk and then he asked us if we thought +he was driving a moving van or a Noah's ark and laughed in a low-bred way +and went out. +</p> +<p> +“At that I had a faint ray of hope that maybe after all I might be saved, +because I had made up my mind to tell the manager I would just step +outside and arrange to hire a delivery wagon or something, and that would +give me a chance to escape; but I think he must have suspected something +from my manner because already he was calling in another taxi driver from +off the street, and there I was, trapped. And the driver of the second +taxi was more accommodating than the other one had been, though goodness +knows his goodness of heart was no treat to me. I should have regarded it +as a personal kindness on his part if he had behaved as the first driver +had done. But no, nothing would do but that he must load that ghastly +monstrosity of a box up alongside him on the rack where they carry trunks, +and two of the packing-room men tied it on with ropes so it couldn't fall +off and get lost. I suppose they thought by that they were doing me a +favor! And then I got in the cab feeling like Marie Antoinette on her way +to be beheaded, and they piled those two baskets in on top of me and the +end of one of them stuck out so far that they couldn't get the door shut +but had to leave it open. And then we rode home, only I didn't feel like +Marie Antoinette any more; I felt like something that was being delivered +in a crate and had come partly undone on the way. +</p> +<p> +“And when we got up to Eighty-ninth Street that bare-faced robber of a +taxicab driver charged me two extra fares—just think of such things +being permitted to go on in a city where the police are supposed to +protect people! And then he unloaded all that mess on the sidewalk in +front of the apartment house and drove off and left me there standing +guard over it—probably the forlornest, most helpless object in all +New York at that moment. +</p> +<p> +“I got one of the hallboys to call the janitor up from the basement and I +asked him if he would be good enough to store my box and my two baskets in +the storeroom where the tenants keep their trunks. And he said not on my +life he wouldn't, because there wasn't any room to spare in the trunk room +and then he asked me what I was going to do with all that truck anyway, +and though it was none of his business I thought it would be tactful to +make a polite answer and I told him I hadn't exactly decided yet and that +I certainly would appreciate his kindness if he could just tuck my things +away in some odd corner somewhere until I had fully made up my mind. While +I was saying that I was giving him one of my most winning smiles, though +it hurt like the toothache to smile under the circumstances and +considering what I'd already been through. +</p> +<p> +“But all he said was: 'Huh, lady, you couldn't tuck them things away at +Times Square and Forty-third Street and that's the biggest corner I knows +of in this town.' +</p> +<p> +“The impudent scoundrel wouldn't relent a mite either, until I'd given him +a dollar for a tip, and then he did agree to keep the baskets in the coal +cellar for a couple of days but no longer. But he absolutely refused to +take the box along too, so I had to have it sent upstairs to the apartment +and put in the bedroom because it was too big to go in the hall. And when +the men got it in the bedroom I could hardly get in myself to take off my +hat. And after that I sat down and cried a little, because really I was +frightfully upset, and moreover I had a feeling that when Scott came home +he would be sure to try to be funny. You know how husbands are, being one +yourself! +</p> +<p> +“Sure enough, when he came in the first thing he saw was that box. He +couldn't very well help seeing it because he practically fell over it as +he stepped in the door. He said: 'What's this?' and I said: 'It's a box'—just +like that. And he said: 'What kind of a box?' And I didn't like his tone +and I said: 'A green box. I should think anybody would know that much.' +And he said: 'Ah, indeed,' several times in a most aggravating way and +walked round it. He couldn't walk all the way round it on account of the +wall being in the way; but as far round it as he could walk without +bumping into the wall. And he looked at it and felt it with his hand and +kicked it once or twice and then he sniffed and said: 'And what's it for?' +And I said: 'To put things in.' And he said: 'For instance, what?' +</p> +<p> +“Now I despise for people to be so technical round me, and besides, of all +the words in the English language I most abhor those words 'for instance'; +but I kept my temper even if I was boiling inside and I said: 'It's to put +things in that you haven't any other place to put them in.' Which was +ungrammatical, I admit, but the best I could do under the prevalent +conditions. And then he looked at me until I could have screamed, and he +said: 'Maude, where did you get that damned thing?' And I said it wasn't a +damned thing but a perfectly good box made out of wood and painted green +and everything; and that I'd got it at an auction sale for a dollar and +that I considered it a real bargain. I didn't feel called on to tell him +about the two baskets down in the coal cellar just yet. So I didn't +mention them; and anyhow, heaven knows I was sick and tired of the whole +subject and ready to drop it, but he kept on looking at it and sniffing +and asking questions. Some people have no idea how a great strong brute of +a man can nag a weak defenseless woman to desperation when he deliberately +sets out to do it. +</p> +<p> +“Finally I said: 'Well, even if you don't like the box I think it's a +perfectly splendid box, and look what a good strong lock it has on it—surely +that's worth something.' And he said: 'Well, let's see about that—where's +the key?' And, my dear, then it dawned on me that I didn't have any key! +</p> +<p> +“Well, a person can stand just so much and no more. I'm a patient +long-suffering woman and I've always been told that I had a wonderful +disposition, but there are limits. And when he burst out laughing and +wouldn't stop laughing but kept right on and laughed and laughed and +leaned up against something and laughed some more until you could have +heard him in the next block—why then, all of a sudden something +seemed to give way inside of me and I burst out crying—I couldn't +hold in another second—and I told him that I'd never speak to him +again the longest day he lived and that he could go to Halifax or some +other place beginning with the same initial and take the old box with him +for all I cared; and just as I burst out of the room I heard him say: 'No, +madam, when I married you I agreed to support you, but I didn't engage to +take care of any air-tight, burglar-proof, pea-green box the size of a +circus cage!' And I suppose he thought that was being funny, too. A +perverted sense of humor is an awful cross to bear—in a husband! +</p> +<p> +“So I went and lay down on the living-room couch with a raging, splitting, +sick headache and I didn't care whether I lived or died, but on the whole +rather preferred dying. After a little he came in, trying to hold his face +straight, and begged my pardon. And I told him I would forgive him if he +would do just two things. And he asked me what those two things were and I +told him one was to quit snickering like an idiot every few moments and +the other was never to mention boxes to me again as long as he lived. And +he promised on his solemn word of honor he wouldn't, but he said I must +bear with him if he smiled a little bit once in a while as the evening +wore on, because when he did that he would be thinking about something +very funny that had happened at the office that day and not thinking about +what I would probably think he was thinking about at all. And then he said +how about running down to the Plaza for a nice little dinner and I said +yes, and after dinner I felt braced up and strong enough to break the news +to him about the two baskets. +</p> +<p> +“And he didn't laugh; in justice to him I must say that much for him. He +didn't laugh. Only he choked or something, and had a very severe coughing +spell. And then we went home and while he was undressing he fell over the +box and barked his shins on it, and though it must have been a strain on +him he behaved like a gentleman and swore only a little. +</p> +<p> +“But, my dear, the worst was yet to come! The next day I had to arrange to +send the whole lot to storage because we simply couldn't go on living with +that box in the only bedroom we had; and the bill for cartage came to two +dollars and a quarter. After I had seen them off to the storage warehouse +I tried to forget all about them. As a matter of fact they never crossed +my mind again until we moved out to the country in April and then I +suddenly remembered about them—getting a bill for three months' +storage at two dollars a month may have had something to do with bringing +them forcibly to my memory—and I telephoned in and asked the manager +of the storage warehouse if he please wouldn't give them to somebody and +he said he didn't know anybody who would have all that junk as a gift. So +it seemed to me the best thing and the most economical thing to do would +be to pay the bill to date and bring them on out to the place. +</p> +<p> +“But, as it turned out, that was a financial mistake, too. Because what +with sending the truck all the way into town, thirty-eight miles and back +again, and the wear and tear on the tires and the gasoline and the man's +time who drove the truck and what Scott calls the overhead—though I +don't see what he means by that because it is an open truck without any +top to it at all—we figure, or rather Scott does, that the cost of +getting them out to the country came to fourteen dollars. +</p> +<p> +“And we still have them, and if you should happen to know of anybody or +should meet anybody who'd like to have two very large roomy wicker baskets +and a very well-made wooden box painted in all-over design in a very good +shade of green and which may contain something valuable, because I haven't +been able to open it yet to find out what's inside, and with a lock that +goes with it, I wish you'd tell them that they can send up to our place +and get them any time that is convenient to them. Or if they don't live +too far away I'd be very glad to send the things over to them. Only I'd +like for them to decide as soon as possible because the gardener, who is +Swedish and awfully fussy, keeps coming in every few days and complaining +about them and asking why I don't have them moved out of the greenhouse, +which is where we are keeping them for the present, and put some other +place where they won't be forever getting in his way. Only there doesn't +seem to be any other suitable place to keep them in unless we build a shed +especially for that purpose. Isn't it curious that sometimes on a +hundred-acre farm there should be so little spare room? I should hate to +go to the added expense of building that shed, and so, as I was saying +just now, if you should happen upon any one who could use those baskets +and that box please don't forget to tell them about my offer.” + </p> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER IX. US LANDED PROPRIETORS +</h2> +<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>o the best of my ability I have been quoting Lady Maude verbatim; but if +unintentionally I have permitted any erroneous quotations to creep into +her remarks they will be corrected before these lines reach the reader's +eye, because the next time she and Scott come over—they are +neighbors of ours out here in Westchester—I mean to ask her to t +read copy on this book. They drop in on us quite frequently and we talk +furnishings, and Scott sits by and smokes and occasionally utters low +mocking sounds under his breath, for as yet he has not been entirely won +over to antiques. There are times when I fear that Scott, though a most +worthy person in all other regards, is hopelessly provincial. Well, I was +a trifle provincial myself before I took the cure. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps I should say that sometimes we talk furnishings with Mistress +Maude, but more often we talk farming problems, with particular reference +to our own successes and the failures of our friends in the same sphere of +endeavor. Indeed, farming is the commonest topic of conversation in our +vicinity. Because, like us, nearly all our friends in this part of the +country were formerly flat dwellers and because, like us, all of them have +done a lot of experimenting in the line of intensified, impractical +agriculture since they moved to the country. +</p> +<p> +We seek to profit by one another's mistakes, and we do—that is, we +profit by them to the extent of gloating over them. Then we go and make a +few glaring mistakes on our own account, and when the word of it spreads +through the neighborhood, seemingly on the wings of the wind, it is their +turn to gloat. We have a regular Gloat Club with an open membership and no +dues. If an amateur tiller of the soil and his wife drop in on us on a +fine spring evening to announce that yesterday they had their first mess +of green peas, whereas our pea vines are still in the blossoming state; or +if in midsummer they come for the express purpose of informing us that +they have been eating roasting ears for a week—they knowing full +well that our early corn has suffered a backset—we compliment them +with honeyed words, and outwardly our manner may bespeak a spirit of +friendly congratulation, but in our souls all is bitterness. +</p> +<p> +After they have left one catches oneself saying to one's helpmeet: “Well, +the Joneses are nice people in a good many respects. Jones would loan you +the last cent he had on earth if you were in trouble and needed it, and in +most regards Mrs. Jones is about as fine a little woman as you'd meet in a +day's ride. But dog-gone it, I wish they didn't brag so much!” Then one of +us opportunely recalls that last year their potatoes developed a slow and +mysterious wasting disease resembling malignant tetter, which carried off +the entire crop in its infancy, whereas we harvested a cellarful of +wonderful praties free from skin blemishes of whatever sort; and warmed by +that delectable recollection we cheer up a bit. And if our strawberries +turn out well or our apple trees bear heavily or our cow has twin calves, +both of the gentler sex, we lose no time in going about the countryside to +spread the tidings, leaving in our wake saddened firesides and hearts all +abrim with the concentrated essence of envy. +</p> +<p> +Practically all our little group specialize. We go in for some line that +is absolutely guaranteed to be profitable until the expense becomes too +great for a person of limited means any longer to bear up under. Then we +drop that and specialize in another line, also recommended as being highly +lucrative, for so long as we can afford it; and then we tackle something +else again. It is a never-ending round of new experiences, because no +matter how disastrously one's most recent experiment has tinned out the +agricultural weeklies are constantly holding forth the advantages of a +field as yet new and untried and morally insured to be one that will yield +large and nourishing dividends. It is my sober conviction that the most +inspired fiction writers in America—the men with the most buoyant +imaginations—are the regular contributors to our standard +agricultural journals. And next to them the most gifted romancers are the +fellows who sell bulbs and seeds. They are not fabulists exactly, because +fables have morals and frequently these persons have none, but they are +inspired fancifiers, I'll tell the world. +</p> +<p> +Each succeeding season finds each family among us embarking upon some new +and fascinating venture. For instance, I have one friend who this year +went in for bees—Italian bees, I think he said they were, though why +he should have been prejudiced against the native-born variety I cannot +understand. He used to drop in at our place to borrow a little cooking +soda—he was constantly running out of cooking soda at his house +owing to using so much of it on his face and hands and his neck for +poulticing purposes—and tell us what charming creatures bees were +and how much honey he expected to lay by that fall. From what he said we +gathered that the half had never been told by Maeterlinck about the +engaging personal habits and captivating tribal customs of bees; bees, we +gathered, were, as a race, perhaps a trifle quicktempered and hot-headed, +or if not exactly hotheaded at least hot elsewhere, but ever ready to +forgive and forget and, once the heat of passion had passed, to let +bygones be bygones. A bee, it seemed from his accounts, was one creature +that always stood ready to meet you halfway. +</p> +<p> +He finally gave up bee culture though, not because his enthusiasm had +waned, for it did not, but for professional reasons solely. He is a +distinguished actor and when he got the leading rôle in a new play it +broke in on his study of the part to be dropping the manuscript every few +minutes and grabbing up a tin dish and running out in an endeavor, by the +power of music, to induce a flock of swarming bees to rehive themselves, +or whatever it is bees are supposed to do when favored with a pie-pan +solo. It seemed his bees had a perfect mania for swarming. The least +little thing would set them off. There must have been too much artistic +temperament about the premises for such emotional and flighty creatures as +bees appear to be. +</p> +<p> +Then there was another reason: After the play went on he found it +interfered with his giving the best that was in him to his art if he had +to go on for a performance all bumpy in spots; also he discovered that +grease paint had the effect of irritating a sting rather than soothing it. +The other afternoon he came over and offered to give me his last remaining +hive of bees. Indeed, he almost pressed them on me. +</p> +<p> +I declined though. I told him to unload his little playmates on some +stranger; that I valued his friendship and hoped to keep it; the more +especially, as I now confessed to him, since I had lately thought that if +literature ever petered out I might take up the drama as a congenial mode +of livelihood, and in such case would naturally benefit through the good +offices of a friend who was already in the business and doing well at it. +Not, however, that I felt any doubt regarding my ultimate success. I do +not mean by this that I have seriously considered playwriting as a regular +profession. Once I did seriously consider it, but nobody else did, and +especially the critics didn't. Remembering what happened to the only +dramatic offering I ever wrote, I long ago made up my mind that if ever I +wrote another play—which, please heaven, I shall not—I would +call it Solomon Grundy, whether I had a character of that name in it or +not. You may recall what happened to the original Solomon Grundy—how +he was born on a Monday, began to fail on Thursday, passed away on +Saturday of the same week and was laid to eternal rest on Sunday. So even +though I never do another play I have the name picked out and ready and +waiting. +</p> +<p> +No, my next venture into the realm of Thespis, should necessity direct my +steps thither, would land me directly upon the histrionic boards. Ever +since I began to fill out noticeably I have nourished this ambition +secretly. As I look at it, a pleasing plumpness of outline should be no +handicap but on the contrary rather a help. My sex of course is against my +undertaking to play The Two Orphans, otherwise I should feel no doubt of +my ability to play both of them, and if they had a little sister I +shouldn't be afraid to take her on, too. But I do rather fancy myself in +the title rôles of The Corsican Brothers. If I should show some +enterprising manager how he might pay out one salary and save another, +surely the idea would appeal to him; and some of these fine days I may +give the idea a try. So having this contingency in mind I gently but +firmly told my friend to take his bees elsewhere. I told him I had no +intention of looking a gift bee in the mouth. +</p> +<p> +We have another neighbor who has gone in rather extensively for blooded +stock with the intention ultimately of producing butter and milk for the +city market. During practically all his active life he has been a +successful theatrical manager, which naturally qualifies him for the cow +business. He is doing very well at it too. So long as he continues to +enjoy successful theatrical seasons he feels that he will be able to go on +with cows. Being a shrewd and far seeing business man he has it all +figured out that a minimum of three substantial enduring hits every autumn +will justify him in maintaining his herd at its present proportions, +whereas with four shows on Broadway all playing to capacity he might even +increase it to the extent of investing in a few more head of registered +thoroughbred stock. +</p> +<p> +From him I have gleaned much regarding cows. Before, the life of a cow +fancier had been to me as a closed book. Generally speaking, cows, so far +as my personal knowledge went, were divided roughly into regular cows +running true to sex, and the other kind of cows, which were invariably +referred to with a deep blush by old-fashioned maiden ladies. True enough, +we owned cows during the earlier stages of our rural life; in fact, we own +one now, a mild-eyed creature originally christened Buttercup but called +by us Sahara because of her prevalent habits. But gentle bone-dry Sahara +is just a plain ordinary cow of undistinguished ancestry. In the preceding +generations of her line scandal after scandal must have occurred; were she +a bagpipe solo instead of a cow scarcely could she have in her more mixed +strains than she has. We acquired her at a bargain in an auction sale; she +is a bargain to any one desiring a cow of settled and steady habits, +regular at her meals, always with an unfailing appetite and having a deep +far-reaching voice. There is also an expectation that some future day we +may also derive from her milk. However, this contingency rests, as one +might say, upon the laps of the gods. +</p> +<p> +The point I am getting at though is that Sahara, whatever else of merit +she may possess in the matters of a kind disposition and a willingness to +eat whatever is put before her, is after all but a mere common +country-bred cow; whereas the cows whose society my wealthy neighbor +cultivates are the pedigreed aristocrats of their breed, and for buying +and selling purposes are valued accordingly. Why, from the way the +proprietors of registered cows brag about their ancient lineage and their +blue-blooded forbears you might think they were all from South Carolina or +Massachusetts—the cows, I mean, not necessarily the proprietors. +</p> +<p> +So it is with the man of whom I have been speaking. Having become a +breeder of fancy stock he now appraises a cow not for what she can do on +her own intrinsic merits but for the size of her family tree, provided she +brings with her the documents to prove it. So far as cows are concerned he +has become a confirmed ancestor worshipper. I am sure he would rather own +a quarter interest in a collateral descendant of old Prince Bullcon the +First of the royal family of the Island of Guernsey, even though the +present bearer of the name were but an indifferent milker and of unsettled +habits, than to be the sole possessor of some untitled but versatile cow +giving malted milk and whipped cream. Such vagaries I cannot fathom. In a +democratic country like this, or at least in a country which used to be +democratic, it seems to me we should value a cow not for what her +grandparents may have been; not for the names emblazoned on her +genealogical record, but for what she herself is. +</p> +<p> +The other Sunday we drove over to his place ostensibly to pay a neighborly +call but really to plant distress in his fireside circle by incidentally +mentioning that our young grapevines were bearing magnificently. +</p> +<p> +You see, a member of the Gloat Club is expected to work at his trade +Sundays as well as weekdays; and besides we had heard that his arbors, +with the coming of the autumn, had seemed a bit puny. So the opportunity +was too good to be lost and we went over. +</p> +<p> +After I had driven the harpoon into his soul and watched it sink into him +up to the barbs he took me out to see the latest improvements he had made +in his cow bam and to call upon the newest addition to his herd. These +times you can bed a hired hand down almost anywhere, but if you go in for +blooded stock you must surround them with the luxuries to which they have +been accustomed, else they are apt to go into a decline. He invited my +inspection of the porcelain-walled stalls and the patent feeding devices +and the sanitary fixtures which abounded on every hand, and to his +recently installed cream separator. In my youth the only cream separator +commonly in vogue was the type of drooping mustache worn by the average +deputy sheriff, and anyhow, with it, cream separating was merely +incidental, the real purposes of the mustache being to be ornamental and +impressive and subtly to convey a proper respect for the majesty of the +law. Often a town marshal wore one too. But the modern separator is a +product of science and not a gift of Nature skillfully elaborated by the +art of the barber. It costs a heap of money and it operates by machinery +and no really stylish dairy farm is complete without it. +</p> +<p> +When I had viewed these wonders he led me to a glorified pasture lot and +presented me to the occupant—a smallish cow of, a prevalent henna +tone. Except that she had rather slender legs and a permanent wave between +the horns she seemed to my uninitiated eyes much the same as any other cow +of the Jersey persuasion. I realized, however, that she must be very +high-church. My friend, I knew, would harbor no nonconformist cows in his +place, and besides, she distinctly had the high-church manner, a thing +which is indefinable in terms of speech but unmistakably to be recognized +wherever found. Otherwise, though, I could observe nothing about her +calculated to excite the casual passer-by. But my friend was all +enthusiasm. +</p> +<p> +“Now,” he said proudly, “what do you think of that for a perfect +specimen?” + </p> +<p> +“Well,” I said, “anybody could tell that she's had a lot of refining +influences coming into her life. She's no doubt cultured and ladylike to a +degree; and she has the fashionable complexion of the hour and she's all +marcelled up and everything, but excepting for these adornments has she +any special accomplishments that are calculated to give her class?” + </p> +<p> +“Class!” he repeated. “Class, did you say? Say, listen! That cow has all +the class there is. She's less than two years old and she cost me a cool +fifteen hundred cash—and cheap at the figure, at that.” + </p> +<p> +“Fifteen hundred,” I murmured dazedly. “What does she give?” + </p> +<p> +“Why, she gives milk, of course,” he explained. “What else would she be +giving?” + </p> +<p> +“Well,” I said, “I should think that at that price she should at least +give music lessons. Perhaps she does plain sewing?” + </p> +<p> +“Say,” he demanded, “what do you expect for fifteen hundred dollars? +Fifteen hundred is a perfectly ridiculous price to pay for a cow with a +pedigree such as this cow has. She's registered back I don't know how far. +It's the regal breeding you pay for when you get an animal like this—not +the animal herself.” + </p> +<p> +But I refused to be swept off my feet. Before this I had associated with +royalty. I once met a lineal descendant of William the Conqueror; he told +me so himself. Being a descendant was apparently the only profession he +had, and I judged this cow was in much the same line of business. “Well,” + I replied, “all I can say is that I wouldn't care if her ancestors came +over on the Mayflower—if she belonged to me she'd have to show me +something in the line of special endeavor. She'd have to have talents or +we'd part company pretty pronto, I'm telling you.” + </p> +<p> +“It is evident you do not understand anything about blooded stock,” he +said. “The grandmother of this cow was insured for fifteen thousand +dollars, and her great-grandfather, King Bulbul, was worth a fortune. The +owner was offered fifty thousand for him—and refused it.” + </p> +<p> +In my surprise I could only mutter over and over again the name of William +Tell's brother. A great many people do not know that William Tell ever had +a brother. His first name was Wat. +</p> +<p> +After that my friend gave me up as one hopelessly sunken in ignorance, and +by a mutual yet unspoken consent we turned the subject to the actors' +strike, which was then in full blast. But at intervals ever since I have +been thinking of what he told me. To my way of thinking there is something +wrong with the economic system of a country which saddles an income tax on +an unmarried man with an income of more than two thousand dollars a year +and if he be married sinks the ax into all he makes above three thousand, +leaving him the interest deduction on the extra one thousand, amounting, I +believe, to about twelve dollars and a half, for the support of his wife, +on the theory that under the present scale of living any reasonably +prudent man can suitably maintain a wife on twelve-fifty a year—I +repeat, there is something radically wrong with a government which does +this to the wage-earner and yet passes right on by a cow that carries +fifteen thousand in life insurance and a bull worth fifty thousand in his +own right. It amounts to class privilege, I maintain. It's almost enough +to make a man vote the Republican ticket, and I may yet do it, too, +sometime when there aren't any Democrats running, just to show how I feel +about it. +</p> +<p> +Yet others of our acquaintances in the amateur-farming group have taken up +fruit growing or pigeons or even Belgian hares. Belgian hares have been +highly recommended to us as being very prolific. You start in with one +pair of domestic-minded Belgian hares and presently countless thousands of +little Belgian heirs and heiresses are gladdening the landscape. From what +I can hear the average Belgian hare has almost as many aunts and uncles +and cousins as a microbe has. They pay well, too. You can sell a Belgian +hare to almost anybody who hat never tried to eat one. But as we have only +about sixty acres and part of that in woodland, we have felt that there +was scarcely room enough for us to go in for Belgian hares without +sacrificing space which we may require for ourselves. +</p> +<p> +Mainly our experiments have been confined to hogs and poultry. I will not +claim that we have been entirely successful in these directions. The +trouble seems to be that our pigs are so tremendously opposed to race +suicide and that our hens are so firmly committed to it. Now offhand you +might think an adult animal of the swine family that completely gave +herself over to the idea of multiplying and replenishing the earth with +her species would be an asset to any farm, but in my own experience I have +found that such is not always the case. Into the world a brood of little +pinky-white squealers are ushered. They grow apace, devouring with avidity +the most expensive brands of pig food that the grocer has in stock; and +then, just when your mind is filled with delectable visions of hams in the +smokehouse and flitches of bacon in the cellar and tierces of lard in the +cold-storage room and spare-ribs and crackling and home-made country +sausage and pork tenderloins on the table—why, your prospects +deliberately go and catch the hog cholera and are shortly no more. They +have a perfect mania for it. They'll travel miles out of their way to +catch it; they'll sit up until all hours of the night in the hope of +catching it. Hogs will swim the Mississippi River—and it full of ice—to +get where hog cholera is. Our hogs have been observed in the act of +standing in the pen with their snouts in the air, sniffing in unison until +they attracted the germs of it right out of the air. It is very +disheartening to be counting on bacon worth eighty cents a pound only to +find that all you have on your hands is a series of hurried interments. +</p> +<p> +In their own sphere of life turkeys are as suicidally minded as hogs are. +I speak with authority here because we tried raising turkeys, too. For a +young turkey to get its feet good and wet spells doom for the turkey, and +accordingly it practically devotes its life to getting its feet wet. If it +cannot escape from the pen into the damp grass immediately following a +rain it will in its desperation take other measures with a view to +catching its death of cold. One of the most distressing spectacles to be +witnessed in all Nature is a half-grown feebleminded turkey obsessed with +the maniacal idea that it was born a puddle duck, running round and round +a coop trying to find a damp spot to stand on; it is a pitiful sight and +yet exasperating. In order to get its feet wet an infant turkey has been +known to jump down an artesian well two hundred feet deep. This is not +mere idle rumor; it if a scientific fact well authenticated. If somebody +would only invent a style of overshoe that might be worn in comfort by an +adolescent turkey without making the turkey feel distraught or +self-concious, that person would confer a boon upon the entire turkey race +and at the same time be in a fair way to reap a fortune for himself. I +know that a few months back if such an article had been in the market I +would gladly have taken fifty pairs, assorted misses' and children's +sizes. +</p> +<p> +As for hens, I confess that at times I have felt like altogether +abandoning my belief in the good faith and honest intentions of hens. +Naturally one thinks of hens in connection with fresh-laid eggs, but my +experience has been that the hen does not follow this line of reasoning. +She prefers to go off on a different bent. She figures she was created to +adorn society, not to gladden the breakfast platter of man. Or at any rate +I would state that this has been the obsession customarily harbored by the +hens which we have owned and which we persistently continue, in the face +of disappointment compounded, to go on owning. +</p> +<p> +We started out by buying, at a perfectly scandalous outlay, a collection +of blooded hens of the white Plymouth Rock variety. We had been told that +the sun never set on a setting white Plymouth Rock hen; that a white +Plymouth Rock hen which had had the right sort of influences in her life +and the right sort of hereditary instincts to guide her in her maturer +career would inevitably dedicate her entire being to producing eggs. And +we believed it until the hens we had purchased themselves offered proof to +the absolute contrary. +</p> +<p> +It was enough almost to break one's heart to see a great broad-beamed, +full-busted husky hen promenading round the chicken run, eating her head +off, gadding with her sister idlers, wasting the precious golden hours of +daylight in idle social pursuits and at intervals saying to herself: “Lay +an egg? Well, I guess not! Why should I entail a strain on my nervous +system and deny myself the pleasures of the gay life for the sake of these +people? If they were able to pay four dollars for me, sight unseen, they +are sufficiently affluent to buy their own eggs. Am I right? I'll say I +am!” + </p> +<p> +You could look at her expression and tell what she was thinking. And then +when you went and made the rounds of the empty and untenanted nests you +knew that you had correctly fathomed the workings of her mind. +</p> +<p> +We tried every known argument on those hens in an effort to make them see +the error of their ways and the advantages of eggs. We administered to +them meat scraps and fresh carrots and rutabagas and sifted gravel and +ground-up oyster shells; the only result was to make them finicky and +particular regarding their diet. No longer were they satisfied with the +things we ate ourselves; no, they must have special dishes; they wished to +be pampered like invalids. We bought for them large quantities of costly +chick feed—compounds guaranteed to start the most confirmed spinster +hen to laying her head off. +</p> +<p> +So far as I might observe, this, too, was of no avail. The more confirmed +imbibers of the special dishes merely developed lumpy dropsical figures +and sat about in shady spots and brooded in a morbid way as though they +had heavy loads on their minds. We killed one of them as a sacrifice to +scientific investigation and cut her open, and lo, she was burdened inside +with half-developed yolks—a case, one might say, of mislaid eggs. +</p> +<p> +In desperation I even thought of invoking the power of mental suggestion +on them. Possibly it might help to hang up a picture of a lady sturgeon in +the henhouse? Or would it avail to shoo them into a group and read aloud +to them the begat chapter in the Old Testament? +</p> +<p> +While I was considering these expedients some one suggested that probably +the trouble lay in the fact that our fowls either were too highly bred or +were too closely related and perhaps an infusion of new blood was what was +needed. So now we went to the other extreme and added to our flock a +collection of ordinary scrub hens, mixed as to breed and homely as to +their outward appearance, but declared—by their former owner—to +be passionately addicted to the pursuit of laying eggs. Conceding that +this was true, the fact remained that immediately they passed into our +possession they became slackers and nonproducers. I imagine the mistake we +made was in permitting them to associate with the frivolous white +débutantes we already owned; undoubtedly those confirmed bachelor maids +put queer ideas into their heads, causing them to believe there was no +nourishment in achieving eggs to be served up with a comparative +stranger's fried ham. On the theory that they might require exercise to +stimulate their creative faculties we let them range through the meadows. +Some among them promptly deserted the grassy leas to ravage our garden; +others made hidden nests in the edges of the thickets, where the hawks and +the weasels and the skunks and the crows might fatten on the fruits of +their misdirected industry. So we cooped them up again in their run, +whereupon they developed rheumatism and sore eyes and a perverted craving +for eating one another's tail feathers. At present our chicken yard is +nothing more nor less than a hen sanitarium. But we do not despair of +ultimate success with our hens. We may have to cross them with the Potomac +shad, but we mean to persevere until victory has perched upon our roosts. +As Rupert Hughes remarked when, after writing a long list of plays which +died a-borning, he eventually produced a riotous hit of hits: “Well, I'm +only human—I couldn't fail every time.” + </p> +<p> +I should have said that there is one fad to which all our Westchester +County colony of amateur farmers are addicted. Some may pursue one +agricultural hobby and some another, but almost without exception the +members of our little community are confirmed hired-help fanciers. You +meet a neighbor and he tells you that after a disastrous experience with +Polled Polaks he is now about to try the White Face Cockneys; they have +been highly recommended to him. And next month when you encounter him +again he is experimenting with Italian road builders or Scotch gardeners +or Swedish stable hands or Afro-American tree trimmers or what not. +</p> +<p> +One member of our group after a prolonged season of alternating hopes and +disappointments during which he first hired and then for good and +sufficient reasons fired representatives of nearly all the commoner +varieties—plain and colored, domestic and imported, strays, culls +and mavericks—decided to try his luck in the city at one of the +employment agencies specializing in domestic servitors for country places. +He procured the address of such an establishment and repaired thither—simply +attired in his everyday clothes. As soon as he entered the place he +realized that he was in the wrong pew; here, plainly, was a shop to which +repaired the proprietors of ostentatious estates rather than the modest +owners of farms, among whom he numbered himself. He tried to back out, +making himself as inconspicuous as possible in so doing, but at that +before he succeeded in escaping he had two good jobs offered to him—one +as assistant groom in a racing stable over on Long Island and one as +general handyman at a yacht club up in Connecticut. He is convinced now +that the rich are so hard pressed for servants that they'll hire almost +anybody without requiring references. +</p> +<p> +None of us will ever be rich; we're all convinced of that, the cost of +impractical farming being what it is, but by the same token none of us +would give up the pleasures of a landed proprietor's lot—the word +landed being here used to imply one baited, hooked and caught; i.e., a +landed sucker—for the life of a flat dweller again. It's a great +life if a fellow doesn't weaken—and we'll never weaken. +</p> +<h3> +THE END +</h3> +<div style="height: 6em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abandoned Farmers, by Irvin S. Cobb + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABANDONED FARMERS *** + +***** This file should be named 44226-h.htm or 44226-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/2/2/44226/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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+<head>
+<title>
+The Abandoned Farmers, by Irvin S. Cobb
+</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+ <!--
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abandoned Farmers, by Irvin S. Cobb
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Abandoned Farmers
+His Humorous Account of a Retreat from the City to the Farm
+
+Author: Irvin S. Cobb
+
+Release Date: November 18, 2013 [EBook #44226]
+Last Updated: March 11, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABANDONED FARMERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div style="height: 8em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h1>
+THE ABANDONED FARMERS
+</h1>
+<h3>
+His Humorous Account Of A Retreat From The City To The Farm
+</h3>
+<h2>
+By Irvin S. Cobb
+</h2>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<p>
+<b>CONTENTS</b>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE ABANDONED FARMERS</b> </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. WHICH REALLY IS A PREFACE IN DISGUISE
+</a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER II. THE START OF A DREAM </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER III. THREE YEARS ELAPSE </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER IV. HAPPY DAYS FOR MAJOR GLOOM </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER V. IN WHICH WE BORE FOE WATER </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VI. TWO MORE YEARS ELAPSE </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VII. “AND SOLD TO——” </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER VIII, THE ADVENTURE OF LADY MAUDE </a>
+</p>
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER IX. US LANDED PROPRIETORS </a>
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+THE ABANDONED FARMERS
+</h2>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER I. WHICH REALLY IS A PREFACE IN DISGUISE
+</h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t is the inclination of the average reader to skip prefaces. For this I
+do not in the least blame him. Skipping the preface is one of my favorite
+literary pursuits. To catch me napping a preface must creep up quietly and
+take me, as it were, unawares.
+</p>
+<p>
+But in this case sundry prefatory remarks became necessary. It was
+essential that they should be inserted into this volume in order that
+certain things might be made plain. The questions were: How and where?
+After giving the matter considerable thought I decided to slip them in
+right here, included, as they are, with the body of the text and further
+disguised by masquerading themselves under a chapter heading, with a view
+in mind of hoodwinking you into pursuing the course of what briefly I have
+to say touching on the circumstances attending the production of the main
+contents. Let me explain:
+</p>
+<p>
+Chapter II, coming immediately after this one, was written first of all;
+written as an independent contribution to American letters. At the time of
+writing it I had no thought that out of it, subsequently, would grow
+material for additional and supplementary offerings upon the same general
+theme and inter-related themes. It had a basis of verity, as all things in
+this life properly should have, but I shall not attempt to deny that
+largely it deals with what more or less is figurative and fanciful. The
+incident of the finding of the missing will in the ruins of the old mill
+is a pure figment of the imagination; so, too, the passage relating to the
+search for the lost heir (Page 55) and the startling outcome of that
+search.
+</p>
+<p>
+Three years later, actual events in the meantime having sufficiently
+justified the taking of such steps, I prepared the matter which here is
+presented in Chapters III, IV and V, inclusive. Intervened then a break of
+approximately two years more, when the tale was completed substantially in
+its present form. In all of these latter installments I adhered closely to
+facts, merely adding here and there sprinklings of fancy, like dashes of
+paprika on a stew, in order to give, as I fondly hoped, spice to my
+recital.
+</p>
+<p>
+One of the prime desires now, in consolidating the entire narrative within
+these covers, is to round out, from inception to finish, the record of our
+strange adventures in connection with our quest for an abandoned farm and
+on our becoming abandoned farmers, trusting that others, following our
+examples, may perhaps profit in some small degree by our mistakes as here
+set forth and perhaps ultimately when their dreams have come true, too,
+share in that proud joy of possession which is ours. Another object,
+largely altruistic in its nature, is to afford opportunity for the reader,
+by comparison of the chronological sub-divisions into which the story
+falls, to decide whether with the passage of time, my style of writing
+shows a tendency toward improvement or an increasing and enhanced
+faultiness. Those who feel inclined to write me upon the subject are
+notified that the author is most sensible in this regard, being ever ready
+to welcome criticism, provided only the criticism be favorable in tone.
+Finally there is herewith confessed a third motive, namely, an ambition
+that a considerable number of persons may see their way clear to buy this
+book.
+</p>
+<p>
+Quite aside from my chief aim as a writer, which is from time to time to
+enrich our native literature, I admit to sharing with nearly all writers
+and with practically all publishers a possibly selfish but not altogether
+unnatural craving. When I have prepared the material for a volume I desire
+that the volume may sell, which means royalties, which means cash in hand.
+The man who labors for art's sake alone nearly always labors for art's
+sake alone; at least usually he appears to get very little else out of his
+toil while he is alive. After his death posterity may enshrine him, but
+posterity, as some one has aptly said, butters no parsnips. I may state
+that I am almost passionately fond of my parsnips, well-buttered. My
+publisher is also one of our leading parsnip-lovers. These facts should be
+borne in mind by prospective purchasers of the book.
+</p>
+<p>
+I believe that is about all I would care to say in the introductory phase.
+With these few remarks, therefore, the attention of the reader
+respectfully is directed to Chapter II and points beyond.
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER II. THE START OF A DREAM
+</h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>or years it was the dream of our life—I should say our lives, since
+my wife shared this vision with me—to own an abandoned farm. The
+idea first came to us through reading articles that appeared in the
+various magazines and newspapers telling of the sudden growth of what I
+may call the aban-doned-farm industry.
+</p>
+<p>
+It seemed that New England in general—and the state of Connecticut
+in particular—was thickly speckled with delightful old places which,
+through overcultivation or ill-treatment, had become for the time being
+sterile and non-productive; so that the original owners had moved away to
+the nearby manufacturing towns, leaving their ancestral homesteads empty
+and their ancestral acres idle. As a result there were great numbers of
+desirable places, any one of which might be had for a song. That was the
+term most commonly used by the writers of these articles—abandoned
+farms going for a song. Now, singing is not my forte; still, I made up my
+mind that if such indeed was the case I would sing a little, accompanying
+myself on my bank balance, and win me an abandoned farm.
+</p>
+<p>
+The formula as laid down by the authorities was simple in the extreme:
+Taking almost any Connecticut town for a starting point, you merely
+meandered along an elm-lined road until you came to a desirable location,
+which you purchased for the price of the aforesaid song. This formality
+being completed, you spent a trivial sum in restoring the fences, and so
+on, and modernizing the interior of the house; after which it was a
+comparatively easy task to restore the land to productiveness by processes
+of intensive agriculture—details procurable from any standard book
+on the subject or through easy lessons by mail. And so presently, with
+scarcely any trouble or expense at all, you were the possessor of a
+delightful country estate upon which to spend your declining years. It
+made no difference whether you were one of those persons who had never to
+date declined anything of value; there was no telling when you might start
+in.
+</p>
+<p>
+I could shut my eyes and see the whole delectable prospect: Upon a gentle
+eminence crowned with ancient trees stood the rambling old manse, filled
+with marvelous antique furniture, grandfather's clocks dating back to the
+whaling days, spinning wheels, pottery that came over on the <i>Mayflower</i>,
+and all those sorts of things. Round about were the meadows, some under
+cultivation and some lying fallow, the latter being dotted at appropriate
+intervals with fallow deer.
+</p>
+<p>
+At one side of the house was the orchard, the old gnarly trees crooking
+their bent limbs as though inviting one to come and pluck the sun-kissed
+fruit from the burdened bough; at the other side a purling brook wandering
+its way into a greenwood copse, where through all the golden day sang the
+feathered warblers indigenous to the climate, including the soft-billed
+Greenwich thrush, the Peabody bird, the Pettingill bird, the red worsted
+pulse-warmer, and others of the commoner varieties too numerous to
+mention.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the back were the abandoned cotes and byres, with an abandoned rooster
+crowing lustily upon a henhouse, and an abandoned bull calf disporting
+himself in the clover of the pasture. At the front was a rolling vista
+undulating gently away to where above the tree-tops there rose the spires
+of a typical New England village full of old line Republicans and
+characters suitable for putting into short stories. On beyond, past where
+a silver lake glinted in the sunshine, was a view either of the distant
+Sound or the distant mountains. Personally I intended that my
+establishment should be so placed as to command a view of the Sound from
+the east windows and of the mountains from the west windows. And all to be
+had for a song! Why, the mere thought of it was enough to make a man start
+taking vocal culture right away.
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides, I had been waiting impatiently for a long time for an opportunity
+to work out several agricultural projects of my own. For example, there
+was my notion in regard to the mulberry. The mulberry, as all know, is one
+of our most abundant small fruits; but many have objected to it on account
+of its woolly appearance and slightly caterpillary taste. My idea was to
+cross the mulberry on the slippery elm—pronounced, where I came
+from, ellum—producing a fruit which I shall call the mulellum. This
+fruit would combine the health-giving qualities of the mulberry with the
+agreeable smoothness of the slippery elm; in fact, if my plans worked out
+I should have a berry that would go down so slick the consumer could not
+taste it at all unless he should eat too many of them and suffer from
+indigestion afterward.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there was my scheme for inducing the common chinch bug to make chintz
+curtains. If the silk worms can make silk why should not the chinch bug do
+something useful instead of wasting his energies in idle pursuits? This is
+what I wished to know. And why should this man Luther Burbank enjoy a
+practical monopoly of all these propositions? That was the way I looked at
+it; and I figured that an abandoned farm would make an ideal place for
+working out such experiments as might come to me from time to time.
+</p>
+<p>
+The trouble was that, though everybody wrote of the abandoned farms in a
+broad, general, allur-ing way, nobody gave the exact location of any of
+them. I subscribed for one of the monthly publications devoted to country
+life along the Eastern seaboard and searched assiduously through its
+columns for mention of abandoned farms. The owners of most of the country
+places that were advertised for sale made mention of such things as
+fourteen master's bedrooms and nine master's baths—showing
+undoubtedly that the master would be expected to sleep oftener than he
+bathed—sunken gardens and private hunting preserves, private golf
+links and private yacht landings.
+</p>
+<p>
+In nearly every instance, also, the advertisement was accompanied by a
+halftone picture of a structure greatly resembling the new county court
+house they are going to have down at Paducah if the bond issue ever
+passes. This seemed a suitable place for holding circuit court in, or even
+fiscal court, but it was not exactly the kind of country home that we had
+pictured for ourselves. As my wife said, just the detail of washing all
+those windows would keep the girl busy fully half the time. Nor did I care
+to invest in any sunken gardens. I had sufficient experience in that
+direction when we lived in the suburbs and permanently invested about half
+of what I made in our eight-by-ten flower bed in an effort to make it
+produce the kind of flowers that the florists' catalogues described. You
+could not tell us anything about that subject—we knew where a sunken
+garden derives its name. We paid good money to know.
+</p>
+<p>
+None of the places advertised in the monthly seemed sufficiently abandoned
+for our purposes, so for a little while we were in a quandary. Then I had
+a bright thought. I said to myself that undoubtedly abandoned farms were
+so cheap the owners did not expect to get any real money for them; they
+would probably be willing to take something in exchange. So I began buying
+the evening papers and looking through them in the hope of running across
+some such item as this:
+</p>
+<p>
+To Exchange—Abandoned farm, centrally located, with large farmhouse,
+containing all antique furniture, barns, outbuildings, family graveyard—planted—orchard,
+woodland, fields—unplanted—for a collection of postage stamps
+in album, an amateur magician's outfit, a guitar with book of
+instructions, a safety bicycle, or what have you? Address Abandoned, South
+Squantum Center, Connecticut.
+</p>
+<p>
+I found no such offers, however; and in view of what we had read this
+seemed stranger still. Finally I decided that the only safe method would
+be by first-hand investigation upon the spot. I would go by rail to some
+small but accessible hamlet in the lower part of New England. On arriving
+there I personally would examine a number of the more attractive abandoned
+farms in the immediate vicinity and make a discriminating selection.
+Having reached this conclusion I went to bed and slept peacefully—or
+at least I went to bed and did so as soon as my wife and I had settled one
+point that came up unexpectedly at this juncture. It related to the
+smokehouse. I was in favor of turning the smokehouse into a study or
+workroom for myself. She thought, though, that by knocking the walls out
+and altering the roof and building a pergola on to it, it would make an
+ideal summer house in which to serve tea and from which to view the
+peaceful landscape of afternoons.
+</p>
+<p>
+We argued this back and forth at some length, each conceding something to
+the other's views; and finally we decided to knock out the walls and alter
+the roof and have a summer house with a pergola in connection. It was
+after we reached this compromise that I slept so peacefully, for now the
+whole thing was as good as settled. I marveled at not having thought of it
+sooner.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was on a bright and peaceful morning that I alighted from the train at
+North Newburybunkport.
+</p>
+<p>
+Considering that it was supposed to be a typical New England village,
+North Newbury-bunkport did not appear at first glance to answer to the
+customary specifications, such as I had gleaned from my reading of novels
+of New England life. I had expected that the platform would be populated
+by picturesque natives in quaint clothes, with straws in their mouths and
+all whittling; and that the depot agent would wear long chin whiskers and
+say “I vum!” with much heartiness at frequent intervals. Right here I wish
+to state that so far as my observations go the native who speaks these
+words about every other line is no longer on the job. Either I Vum the
+Terrible has died or else he has gone to England to play the part of the
+typical American millionaire in American plays written by Englishmen.
+</p>
+<p>
+Instead of the loafers, several chauffeurs were idling about the station
+and a string of automobiles was drawn up across the road. Just as I
+disembarked there drove up a large red bus labeled: Sylvan Dale Summer
+Hotel, European and American Plans. The station agent also proved in the
+nature of a disappointment. He did not even say “I swan” or “I cal'late!”
+ or anything of that nature. He wore a pink in his buttonhole and his hair
+was scalloped up off his forehead in what is known as the lion tamer's
+roach. Approaching, I said to him:
+</p>
+<p>
+“In what direction should I go to find some of the abandoned farms of this
+vicinity? I would prefer to go where there is a good assortment to pick
+from.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+He did not appear to understand, so I repeated the question, at the same
+time offering him a cigar.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Bo,” he said, “you've sure got me winging now. You'd better ask Tony
+Magnito—he runs the garage three doors up the street from here on
+the other side. Tony does a lot of driving round the country for suckers
+that come up here, and he might help you.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+To reach the garage I had to cross the road, dodging several automobiles
+in transit, and then pass two old-fashioned New England houses fronting
+close up to the sidewalk. One had the sign of a teahouse over the door,
+and in the window of the other, picture postcards, birch-bark souvenirs
+and standard varieties of candy were displayed for sale.
+</p>
+<p>
+Despite his foreign-sounding name, Mr. Magnito spoke fair English—that
+is, as fair English as any one speaks who employs the Manhattan accent in
+so doing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Even after he found out that I did not care to rent a touring car for
+sightseeing purposes at five dollars an hour he was quite affable and
+accommodating; but my opening question appeared to puzzle him just as in
+the case of the depot agent.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Mister,” he said frankly, “I'm sorry, but I don't seem to make you.
+What's this thing you is looking for? Tell me over again slow.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+Really the ignorance of these villagers regarding one of their principal
+products—a product lying, so to speak, at their very doors and
+written about constantly in the public prints—was ludicrous. It
+would have been laughable if it had not been deplorable. I saw that I
+could not indulge in general trade terms. I must be painfully explicit and
+simple.
+</p>
+<p>
+“What I am seeking”—I said it very slowly and very distinctly—“is
+a farm that has been deserted, so to speak—one that has outlived its
+usefulness as a farm proper, and everything like that!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Oh,” he says, “now I get you! Why didn't you say that in the first place?
+The place you're looking for is the old Parham place, out here on the post
+road about a mile. August'll take good care of you—that's his
+specialty.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“August?” I inquired. “August who?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“August Weinstopper—the guy who runs it,” he explained. “You must
+have known August if you lived long in New York. He used to be the steward
+at that big hotel at Broadway and Forty-second; that was before he came up
+here and opened up the old Parham place as an automobile roadhouse. He's
+cleaning up about a thousand a month. Some class to that mantrap! They've
+got an orchestra, and nothing but vintage goods on the wine card, and
+dancing at all hours. Any night you'll see forty or fifty big cars rolling
+up there, bringing swell dames and-”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I judge he saw by my expression that he was on a totally wrong tack,
+because he stopped short.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Say, mister,” he said, “I guess you'd better step into the post-office
+here—next door—and tell your troubles to Miss Plummer. She
+knows everything that's going on round here—and she ought to, too,
+seeing as she gets first chance at all the circulars and postal cards that
+come in. Besides, I gotter be changing that gasoline sign—gas has
+went up two cents a gallon more.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+Miss Plummer was sorting mail when I appeared at her wicket. She was one
+of those elderly, spinsterish-looking, kittenish females who seem in an
+intense state of surprise all the time. Her eyebrows arched like croquet
+wickets and her mouth made O's before she uttered them.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Name, please?” she said twitteringly.
+</p>
+<p>
+I told her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ah,” she said in the thrilled tone of one who is watching a Fourth of
+July skyrocket explode in midair. The news seemed to please her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And the initials, please?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“The initials are of no consequence. I do not expect any mail,” I said. “I
+want merely to ask you a question.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Indeed!” she said coyly. She said it as though I had just given her a
+handsome remembrance, and she cocked her head on one side like a bird—like
+a hen-bird.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I hate to trouble you,” I went on, “but I have experienced some
+difficulty in making your townspeople understand me. I am looking for a
+certain kind of farm—a farm of an abandoned character.” At once I
+saw I had made a mistake.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You do not get my meaning,” I said hastily. “I refer to a farm that has
+been deserted, closed up, shut down—in short, abandoned. I trust I
+make myself plain.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+She was still suffering from shock, however. She gave me a wounded-fawn
+glance and averted her burning face.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The Prewitt property might suit your purposes—whatever they may
+be,” she said coldly over her shoulder. “Mr. Jabez Pickerel, of Pickerel
+& Pike, real-estate dealers, on the first corner above, will doubtless
+give you the desired information. He has charge of the Prewitt property.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+At last, I said to myself as I turned away, I was on the right track. Mr.
+Pickerel rose as I entered his place of business. He was a short, square
+man, with a brisk manner and a roving eye.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I have been directed to you,” I began. He seized my hand and began
+shaking it warmly. “I have been told,” I continued, “that you have charge
+of the old Prewitt farm somewhere near here; and as I am in the market for
+an aban-” I got no farther than that.
+</p>
+<p>
+“In one minute,” he shouted explosively—“in just one minute!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+Still clutching me by the hand, he rushed me pell-mell out of the place.
+At the curbing stood a long, low, rakish racing-model roadster, looking
+something like a high-powered projectile and something like an enlarged
+tailor's goose. Leaping into this machine at one bound, he dragged me up
+into the seat beside him and threw on the power. Instantly we were
+streaking away at a perfectly appalling rate of speed—fully
+forty-five to fifty-five miles an hour I should say. You never saw
+anything so sudden in your life. It was exactly like a kidnaping. It was
+only by the exercise of great self-control that I restrained myself from
+screaming for help. I had the feeling that I was being abducted—for
+what purpose I knew not.
+</p>
+<p>
+As we spun round a corner on two wheels, spraying up a long furrow of
+dust, the same as shown in pictures of the chariot race in Ben-Hur, a man
+with a watch in his hand and wearing a badge—a constable, I think—ran
+out of a house that had a magistrate's sign over it and threw up his hand
+authoritatively, as though to stop us; but my companion yelled something
+the purport of which I could not distinguish and the constable fell back.
+Glancing rearward over my shoulder I saw him halting another car bearing a
+New York license that did not appear to be going half so fast as we were.
+</p>
+<p>
+In another second we were out of town, tearing along a country highway.
+Evidently sensing the alarm expressed by my tense face and strained
+posture, this man Pickerel began saying something in what was evidently
+intended to be a reassuring tone; but such was the roaring of the car that
+I could distinguish only broken fragments of his speech. I caught the
+words “unparalleled opportunity,” repeated several times—the term
+appeared to be a favorite of his—and “marvelous proposition.”
+ Possibly I was not listening very closely anyhow, my mind being otherwise
+engaged. For one thing I was surmising in a general sort of way upon the
+old theory of the result when the irresistible force encounters the
+immovable object. I was wondering how long it would be before we hit
+something solid and whether it would be possible afterward to tell us
+apart. His straw hat also made me wonder. I had mine clutched in both
+hands and even then it fluttered against my bosom like a captive bird, but
+his stayed put. I think yet he must have had threads cut in his head to
+match the convolutions of the straw and screwed his hat on, like a nut on
+an axle.
+</p>
+<p>
+I have a confused recollection of rushing with the speed of the tornado
+through rows of trees; of leaping from the crest of one small hill to the
+crest of the next small hill; of passing a truck patch with such velocity
+that the lettuce and tomatoes and other things all seemed to merge
+together in a manner suggestive of a well-mixed vegetable salad.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then we swung off the main road in between the huge brick columns of an
+ornate gateway that stood alone, with no fence in connection. We bumpily
+traversed a rutted stretch of cleared land; and then with a jar and a jolt
+we came to a pause in what appeared to be a wide and barren expanse.
+</p>
+<p>
+As my heart began to throb with slightly less violence I looked about me
+for the abandoned farmhouse. I had conceived that it would be white with
+green blinds and that it would stand among trees. It was not in sight;
+neither were the trees. The entire landscape presented an aspect that was
+indeed remarkable. Small numbered stakes, planted in double lines at
+regular intervals, so as to form aisles, stretched away from us in every
+direction. Also there were twin rows of slender sticks planted in the
+earth in a sort of geometric pattern. Some were the size of switches.
+Others were almost as large as umbrella handles and had sprouted slightly.
+A short distance away an Italian was steering a dirtscraper attached to a
+languid mule along a sort of dim roadway. There were no other living
+creatures in sight. Right at my feet were two painted and lettered boards
+affixed at cross angles to a wooden upright. The legend on one of these
+boards was: Grand Concourse. The inscription on the other read: Nineteenth
+Avenue West. Repressing a gasp, I opened my mouth to speak.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ahem!” I said. “There has been some mistake—”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“There can be no mistake!” he shouted enthusiastically. “The only mistake
+possible is not to take advantage of this magnificent opportunity while it
+is yet possible to do so. Just observe that view!” He waved his arm in the
+general direction of the horizon from northwest to southeast. “Breathe
+this air! As a personal favor to me just breathe a little of this air!” He
+inhaled deeply himself as though to show me how, and I followed suit,
+because after that ride I needed to catch up with my regular breathing.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Thank you!” I said gratefully when I had finished breathing. “But how
+about——”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Quite right!” he cried, beaming upon me admiringly. “Quite right! I don't
+blame you. You have a right to know all the details. As a business man you
+should ask that question. You were about to say: But how about the train
+service? Ah, there spoke the true business man, the careful investor!
+Twenty fast trains a day each way—twenty, sir! Remember! And as for
+accessibility—well, accessibility is simply no name for it! Only two
+or three minutes from the station. You saw how long it took us to get here
+to-day? Well, then, what more could you ask? Right here,” he went on,
+pointing, “is the country club—a magnificent thing!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I looked, but I didn't see anything except a hole in the ground about
+fifty feet from us.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Where?” I asked. “I don't see it.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Well,” he said, “this is where it is going to be. You automatically
+become a member of the country club; in fact, you are as good as a member
+now! And right up there at the corner of Lincoln Boulevard and Washington
+Parkway, where that scraper is, is the public library—the site for
+it! You'll be crazy about the public library! When we get back I'll let
+you run over the plans for the public library while I'm fixing up the
+papers. Oh, 'my friend, how glad I am you came while there was yet time!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I breasted the roaring torrent of his pouring language.
+</p>
+<p>
+“One minute,” I begged of him—“One minute, if you please! I am
+obliged to you for the interest you take in me, a mere stranger to you;
+but there has been a misunderstanding. I wanted to see the Prewitt place.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“This is the Prewitt place,” he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” I said; “but where is the house? And why all this—why all
+these-” I indicated by a wave of my hand what I meant.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Naturally,” he explained, “the house is no longer here. We tore it away—it
+was old; whereas everything here will be new, modern and up-to-date. This
+is—or was—the Prewitt place, now better known as Homecrest
+Heights, the Development Ideal!” Having begun to capitalize his words, he
+continued to do so. “The Perfect Addition! The Suburb Superb! Away From
+the City's Dust and Heat! Away From Its Glamor and Clamor! Into the Open!
+Into the Great Out-of-Doors! Back to the Soil! Villa Plots on Easy Terms!
+You Furnish the Birds, We Furnish the Nest! The Place For a Business Man
+to Rear His Family! You Are Married? You Have a Wife? You Have Little
+Ones?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” I said, “one of each—one wife and one little one.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Ah!” he cried gladly. “One Little One—How Sweet! You Love Your
+Little One—Ah, Yes! Yes! You Desire to Give Your Little One a
+Chance? You Would Give Her Congenial Surroundings—Refined
+Surroundings? You Would Inculcate in Her While Young the Love of Nature?”
+ He put an entire sentence into capitals now: “Give Your Little One a
+Chance! That is All I Ask of You!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+He had me by both lapels. I thought he was going to kneel to me in
+pleading. I feared he might kiss me. I raised him to his feet. Then his
+manner changed—it became domineering, hectoring, almost threatening.
+</p>
+<p>
+I will pass briefly over the events of the succeeding hour, including our
+return to his lair or office. Accounts of battles where all the losses
+fall upon one side are rarely interesting to read about anyway. Suffice it
+to say that at the last minute I was saved. It was a desperate struggle
+though. I had offered the utmost resistance at first, but he would surely
+have had his way with me—only that a train pulled in bound for the
+city just as he was showing me, as party of the first part, where I was to
+sign my name on the dotted line A. Even then, weakened and worn as I was,
+I should probably not have succeeded in beating him off if he had not been
+hampered by having a fountain pen in one hand and the documents in the
+other. At the door he intercepted me; but I tackled him low about the body
+and broke through and fled like a hunted roebuck, catching the last car
+just as the relief train pulled out of the station. It was a close
+squeeze, but I made it. The thwarted Mr. Pickerel wrote me regularly for
+some months thereafter, making mention of My Little One in every letter;
+but after a while I took to sending the letters back to him unopened, and
+eventually he quit.
+</p>
+<p>
+I reached home along toward evening. I was tired, but I was not
+discouraged. I reported progress on the part of the committee on a
+permanent site, but told my wife that in order to find exactly what we
+wanted it would be necessary for us to leave the main-traveled paths. It
+was now quite apparent to me that the abandoned farm-seeker who stuck too
+closely to the railroad lines was bound to be thrown constantly in contact
+with those false and feverish metropolitan influences which, radiating
+from the city, have spread over the country like the spokes of a wheel or
+an upas tree, or a jauga-naut, or something of that nature. The thing to
+do was to get into an automobile and go away from the principal routes of
+travel, into districts where the abandoned farms would naturally be more
+numerous.
+</p>
+<p>
+This solved one phase of the situation—we now knew definitely where
+to go. The next problem was to decide upon some friend owning an
+automobile. We fixed upon the Winsells. They are charming people! We are
+devoted to the Winsells. They were very good friends of ours when they had
+their small four-passenger car; but since they sold the old one and bought
+a new forty-horse, seven-passenger car, they are so popular that it is
+hard to get hold of them for holidays and week-ends.
+</p>
+<p>
+Every Saturday—nearly—some one of their list of acquaintances
+is calling them up to tell of a lovely spot he has just heard about, with
+good roads all the way, both coming and going; but after a couple of
+disappointments we caught them when they had an open date. Over the
+telephone Winsell objected that he did not know anything about the roads
+up in Connecticut, but I was able to reassure him promptly on that score.
+I told him he need not worry about that—that I would buy the road
+map myself. So on a fair Saturday morning we started.
+</p>
+<p>
+The trip up through the extreme lower end of the state of New York was
+delightful, being marred by only one or two small mishaps. There was the
+trifling incident of a puncture, which delayed us slightly; but
+fortunately the accident occurred at a point where there was a wonderful
+view of the Croton Lakes, and while Winsell was taking off the old tire
+and adjusting a new one we sat very comfortably in the car, enjoying
+Nature's panorama.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a little later on when we hit a dog. It seemed to me that this dog
+merely sailed, yowling, up into the air in a sort of long curve, but
+Winsell insisted that the dog described a parabola. I am very glad that in
+accidents of this character it is always the victims that describe the
+parabola. I know I should be at a complete loss to describe one myself.
+Unless it is something like the boomerang of the Australian aborigines I
+do not even know what a parabola is. Nor did I dream until then that
+Winsell understood the dog language. However, those are but technical
+details.
+</p>
+<p>
+After we crossed the state line we got lost several times; this was
+because the country seemed to have a number of roads the road map omitted,
+and the road map had many roads the country had left out. Eventually,
+though, we came to a district of gently rolling hills, dotted at intervals
+with those neat white-painted villages in which New England excels; and
+between the villages at frequent intervals were farmhouses. Abandoned
+ones, however, were rarer than we had been led to expect. Not only were
+these farms visibly populated by persons who appeared to be permanently
+attached to their respective localities, but at many of them things were
+offered for sale—such as home-made pastry, souvenirs, fresh poultry,
+antique furniture, brass door-knockers, milk and eggs, hand-painted
+crockery, table board, garden truck, molasses taffy, laundry soap and
+livestock.
+</p>
+<p>
+At length, though, when our necks were quite sore from craning this way
+and that on the watch for an abandoned farm that would suit us, we came to
+a very attractive-looking place facing a lawn and flanked by an orchard.
+There was a sign fastened to an elm tree alongside the fence. The sign
+read: For Information Concerning This Property Inquire Within.
+</p>
+<p>
+To Winsell I said:
+</p>
+<p>
+“Stop here—this is without doubt the place we have been looking
+for!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+Filled—my wife and I—with little thrills of anticipation, we
+all got out. I opened the gate and entered the yard, followed by Winsell,
+my wife and his wife. I was about halfway up the walk when a large dog
+sprang into view, at the same time showing his teeth in rather an
+intimidating way. To prevent an encounter with an animal that might be
+hostile, I stepped nimbly behind the nearest tree. As I came round on the
+other side of the tree there, to my surprise, was this dog face to face
+with me. Still desiring to avoid a collision with him, I stepped back the
+other way. Again I met the dog, which was now growling. The situation was
+rapidly becoming embarrassing when a gentleman came out upon the porch and
+called sharply to the dog. The dog, with apparent reluctance, retired
+under the house and the gentleman invited us inside and asked us to be
+seated. Glancing about his living room I noted that the furniture appeared
+to be a trifle modern for our purposes; but, as I whispered to my wife,
+you cannot expect to have everything to suit you at first. With the sweet
+you must ever take the bitter—that I believe is true, though not an
+original saying.
+</p>
+<p>
+In opening the conversation with the strange gentleman I went in a
+businesslike way direct to the point.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You are the owner of these premises?” I asked. He bowed. “I take it,” I
+then said, “that you are about to abandon this farm?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“I beg your pardon?” he said, as though confused.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I presume,” I explained, “that this is practically an abandoned farm.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Not exactly,” he said. “I'm here.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Yes, yes; quite so,” I said, speaking perhaps a trifle impatiently. “But
+you are thinking of going away from it, aren't you?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” he admitted; “I am.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Now,” I said, “we are getting round to the real situation. What are you
+asking for this place?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Eighteen hundred,” he stated. “There are ninety acres of land that go
+with the house and the house itself is in very good order.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I considered for a moment. None of the abandoned farms I had ever read
+about sold for so much as eighteen hundred dollars. Still, I reflected,
+there might have been a recent bull movement; there had certainly been
+much publicity upon the subject. Before committing myself, I glanced at my
+wife. Her expression betokened acquiescence.
+</p>
+<p>
+“That figure,” I said diplomatically, “was somewhat in excess of what I
+was originally prepared to pay; still, the house seems roomy and, as you
+were saying, there are ninety acres. The furniture and equipment go with
+the place, I presume?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Naturally,” he answered. “That is the customary arrangement.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“And would you be prepared to give possession immediately?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Immediately,” he responded.
+</p>
+<p>
+I began to feel enthusiasm. By the look on my wife's face I could tell
+that she was enthused, too.
+</p>
+<p>
+“If we come to terms,” I said, “and everything proves satisfactory, I
+suppose you could arrange to have the deed made out at once?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“The deed?” he said blankly. “You mean the lease?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“The lease?” I said blankly. “You mean the deed?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“The deed?” he said blankly. “You mean the lease?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“The lease, indeed,” said my wife. “You mean——”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I broke in here. Apparently we were all getting the habit.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Let us be perfectly frank in this matter,” I said. “Let us dispense with
+these evasive and dilatory tactics. You want eighteen hundred dollars for
+this place, furnished?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Exactly,” he responded. “Eighteen hundred dollars for it from June to
+October.” Then, noting the expressions of our faces, he continued
+hurriedly: “A remarkably small figure considering what summer rentals are
+in this section. Besides, this house is new. It costs a lot to reproduce
+these old Colonial designs!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I saw at once that we were but wasting our time in this person's company.
+He had not the faintest conception of what we wanted. We came away.
+Besides, as I remarked to the others after we were back in the car and on
+our way again, this house-farm would never have suited us; the view from
+it was nothing extra. I told Winsell to go deeper into the country until
+we really struck the abandoned farm belt.
+</p>
+<p>
+So we went farther and farther. After a while it was late afternoon and we
+seemed to be lost again. My wife and Winsell's wife were tired; so we
+dropped them at the next teahouse we passed. I believe it was the
+eighteenth teahouse for the day. Winsell and I then continued on the quest
+alone. Women know so little about business anyway that it is better, I
+think, whenever possible, to conduct important matters without their
+presence. It takes a masculine intellect to wrestle with these intricate
+problems; and for some reason or other this problem was becoming more and
+more complicated and intricate all the time.
+</p>
+<p>
+On a long, deserted stretch of road, as the shadows were lengthening, we
+overtook a native of a rural aspect plodding along alone. Just as we
+passed him I was taken with an idea and I told Winsell to stop. I was
+tired of trafficking with stupid villagers and avaricious land-grabbers. I
+would deal with the peasantry direct. I would sound the yeoman heart—which
+is honest and true and ever beats in accord with the best dictates of
+human nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+“My friend,” I said to him, “I am seeking an abandoned farm. Do you know
+of many such in this vicinity?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“How?” he asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+I never got so tired of repeating a question in my life; nevertheless, for
+this yokel's limited understanding, I repeated it again.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well,” he said at length, “whut with all these city fellers moving in
+here to do gentleman-farming—whatsoever that may mean—farm
+property has gone up until now it's wuth considerable more'n town
+property, as a rule. I could scursely say I know of any of the kind of
+farms you mention as laying round loose—no, wait a minute; I do
+recollect a place. It's that shack up back of the country poor farm that
+the supervisors used for a pest house the time the smallpox broke out.
+That there place is consider'bly abandoned. You might try—”
+ </p>
+<p>
+In a stern tone of voice I bade Winsell to drive on and turn in at the
+next farmhouse he came to. The time for trifling had passed. My mind was
+fixed. My jaw was also set. I know, because I set it myself. And I have no
+doubt there was a determined glint in my eye; in fact, I could feel the
+glint reflected upon my cheek.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the next farm Winsell turned in. We passed through a stone gateway and
+rolled up a well-kept road toward a house we could see in glimpses through
+the intervening trees. We skirted several rather neat flower beds, curved
+round a greenhouse and came out on a stretch of lawn. I at once decided
+that this place would do undoubtedly. There might be alterations to make,
+but in the main the establishment would be satisfactory even though the
+house, on closer inspection, proved to be larger than it had seemed when
+seen from a distance.
+</p>
+<p>
+On a signal from me Winsell halted at the front porch. Without a word I
+stepped out. He followed. I mounted the steps, treading with great
+firmness and decision, and rang the doorbell hard. A middle-aged person
+dressed in black, with a high collar, opened the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Are you the proprietor of this place?” I demanded without any preamble.
+My patience was exhausted; I may have spoken sharply.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, no, sir,” he said, and I could tell by his accent he was English;
+“the marster is out, sir.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“I wish to see him,” I said, “on particular business—at once! At
+once, you understand—it is important!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Perhaps you'd better come in, sir,” he said humbly. It was evident my
+manner, which was, I may say, almost haughty, had impressed him deeply.
+“If you will wait, sir, I'll have the marster called, sir. He's not far
+away, sir.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Very good,” I replied. “Do so!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+He showed us into a large library and fussed about, offering drinks and
+cigars and what-not. Winsell seemed somewhat perturbed by these
+attentions, but I bade him remain perfectly calm and collected, adding
+that I would do all the talking.
+</p>
+<p>
+We took cigars—very good cigars they were. As they were not banded I
+assumed they were home grown. I had always heard that Connecticut tobacco
+was strong, but these specimens were very mild and pleasant. I had about
+decided I should put in tobacco for private consumption and grow my own
+cigars and cigarettes when the door opened, and a stout elderly man with
+side whiskers entered the room. He was in golfing costume and was
+breathing hard.
+</p>
+<p>
+“As soon as I got your message I hurried over as fast as I could,” he
+said.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You need not apologize,” I replied; “we have not been kept waiting very
+long.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“I presume you come in regard to the traction matter?” he ventured.
+</p>
+<p>
+“No,” I said, “not exactly. You own this place, I believe?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“I do,” he said, staring at me.
+</p>
+<p>
+“So far, so good,” I said. “Now, then, kindly tell me when you expect to
+abandon it.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+He backed away from me a few feet, gaping. He opened his mouth and for a
+few moments absent-mindedly left it in that condition.
+</p>
+<p>
+“When do I expect to do what?” he inquired. “When,” I said, “do you expect
+to abandon it?” He shook his head as though he had some marbles inside of
+it and liked the rattling sound.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I don't understand yet,” he said, puzzled.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I will explain,” I said very patiently. “I wish to acquire by purchase or
+otherwise one of the abandoned farms of this state. Not having been able
+to find one that was already abandoned, though I believe them to be very
+numerous, I am looking for one that is about to be abandoned. I wish, you
+understand, to have the first call on it. Winsell”—I said in an
+aside—“quit pulling at my coat-tail! Therefore,” I resumed,
+readdressing the man with the side whiskers, “I ask you a plain question,
+to wit: When do you expect to abandon this one? I expect a plain answer.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+He edged a few feet nearer an electric push button which was set in the
+wall. He seemed flustered and distraught; in fact, almost apprehensive.
+</p>
+<p>
+“May I inquire,” he said nervously, “how you got in here?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Your servant admitted us,” I said, with dignity. “Yes,” he said in a
+soothing tone; “but did you come afoot—or how?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“I drove here in a car,” I told him, though I couldn't see what difference
+that made.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Merciful Heavens!” he muttered. “They do not trust you—I mean you
+do not drive the car yourself, do you?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+Here Winsell cut in.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I drove the car,” he said. “I—I did not want to come, but he”—pointing
+to me—“he insisted.” Winsell is by nature a groveling soul. His tone
+was almost cringing.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I see,” said the gentleman, wagging his head, “I see. Sad case—very
+sad case! Young, too!” Then he faced me. “You will excuse me now,” he
+said. “I wish to speak to my butler. I have just thought of several things
+I wish to say to him. Now in regard to abandoning this place: I do not
+expect to abandon this place just yet—probably not for some weeks or
+possibly months. In case I should decide to abandon it sooner, if you will
+leave your address with me I will communicate with you by letter at the
+institution where you may chance to be stopping at the time. I trust this
+will be satisfactory.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+He turned again to Winsell.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Does your—ahem—friend care for flowers?” he asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” said Winsell. “I think so.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Perhaps you might show him my flower gardens as you go away,” said the
+side-whiskered man. “I have heard somewhere that flowers have a very
+soothing effect sometimes in such cases—or it may have been music. I
+have spent thirty thousand dollars beautifying these grounds and I am
+really very proud of them. Show him the flowers by all means—you
+might even let him pick a few if it will humor him.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I started to speak, but he was gone. In the distance somewhere I heard a
+door slam.
+</p>
+<p>
+Under the circumstances there was nothing for us to do except to come
+away. Originally I did not intend to make public mention of this incident,
+preferring to dismiss the entire thing from my mind; but, inasmuch as
+Winsell has seen fit to circulate a perverted and needlessly exaggerated
+version of it among our circle of friends, I feel that the exact
+circumstances should be properly set forth.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a late hour when we rejoined our wives. This was due to Winsel's
+stupidity in forgetting the route we had traversed after parting from
+them; in fact, it was nearly midnight before he found his way back to the
+teahouse where we left them. The teahouse had been closed for some hours
+then and our wives were sitting in the dark on the teahouse porch waiting
+for us. Really, I could not blame them for scolding Winsell; but they
+displayed an unwarranted peevishness toward me. My wife's display of
+temper was really the last straw. It was that, taken in connection with
+certain other circumstances, which clinched my growing resolution to let
+the whole project slide into oblivion. I woke her up and in so many words
+told her so on the way home. We arrived there shortly after daylight of
+the following morning.
+</p>
+<p>
+So, as I said at the outset, we gave up our purpose of buying an abandoned
+farm and moved into a flat on the upper west side.
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER III. THREE YEARS ELAPSE
+</h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> wound up the last preceding chapter of this chronicle with the statement
+that we had definitely given up all hope of owning an abandoned farm.
+After an interval of three years the time has now come to recant and to
+make explanation, touching on our change of heart and resolution. For at
+this writing I am an abandoned farmer of the most pronounced type and,
+with the assistance of my family, am doing my level best to convert or, as
+it were, evangelize one of the most thoroughly abandoned farms in the
+entire United States. By the same token we are also members in good
+standing of the Westchester County—New York—Despair
+Association.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Westchester County Despair Association was founded by George Creel,
+who is one of our neighbors. In addition to being its founder he is its
+perpetual president. This association has a large and steadily growing
+membership. Any citybred person who moves up here among the rolling hills
+of our section with intent to get back to Nature, and who, in pursuance of
+that most laudable aim, encounters the various vicissitudes and the varied
+misfortunes which, it would seem, invariably do befall the amateur
+husbandman, is eligible to join the ranks.
+</p>
+<p>
+If he builds a fine silo and promptly it burns down on him, as so
+frequently happens—silos appear to have a habit of deliberately
+going out of their way in order to catch afire—he joins
+automatically. If his new swimming pool won't hold water, or his new road
+won't hold anything else; if his hired help all quit on him in the busy
+season; if the spring freshets flood his cellar; if his springs go dry in
+August; if his horses succumb to one of those fatal diseases that are so
+popular among expensive horses; if his prize Jersey cow chokes on a
+turnip; if his blooded hens are so busy dying they have no time to give to
+laying—why, then, under any one or more of these heads he is
+welcomed into the fold. I may state in passing that, after an experimental
+test of less than six months of country life, we are eligible on several
+counts. However, I shall refer to those details later.
+</p>
+<p>
+Up until last spring we had been living in the city for twelve years, with
+a slice of about four years out of the middle, during which we lived in
+one of the most suburban of suburbs. First we tried the city, then the
+suburb, then the city again; and the final upshot was, we decided that
+neither city nor suburb would do for us. In the suburb there was the daily
+commuting to be considered; besides, the suburb was neither city nor
+country, but a commingling of the drawbacks of the city and the country,
+with not many of the advantages of either. And the city was the city of
+New York.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ours, I am sure, had been the common experience of the majority of those
+who move to New York from smaller communities—the experience of
+practically all except the group from which is recruited the confirmed and
+incurable New Yorker. After you move to New York it takes several months
+to rid you of homesickness for the place you have left; this period over,
+it takes several years usually to cure you of the lure of the city and
+restore to you the longing for the simpler and saner things.
+</p>
+<p>
+To be sure, there is the exception. When I add this qualification I have
+in mind the man who wearies not of spending his evenings from eight-thirty
+until eleven at a tired-business-man's show; of eating
+tired-business-man's lunch in a lobsteria on the Great White Way from
+eleven-thirty p. m. until closing time; of having his toes trodden upon by
+other tired business men at the afternoon-dancing parlor; of twice a day,
+or oftener, being packed in with countless fellow tired business men in
+the tired cars of the tired Subway—I have him in mind, also the
+woman who is his ordained mate.
+</p>
+<p>
+But, for the run of us, life in the city, within a flat, eventually gets
+upon our nerves; and life within the city, outside the flat, gets upon our
+nerves to an even greater extent. The main trouble about New York is not
+that it contains six million people, but that practically all of them are
+constantly engaged in going somewhere in such a hurry. Nearly always the
+place where they are going lies in the opposite direction from the place
+where you are going. There is where the rub comes, and sooner or later it
+rubs the nap off your disposition.
+</p>
+<p>
+The everlasting shooting of the human rapids, the everlasting portages
+about the living whirlpools, the everlasting bucking of the human cross
+currents—these are the things that, in due time, turn the thoughts
+of the sojourner to mental pictures of peaceful fields and burdened
+orchards, and kindfaced cows standing knee-deep in purling brooks, and
+bosky dells and sylvan glades. At any rate, so our thoughts turned.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then, too, a great many of our friends were moving to the country to live,
+or had already moved to the country to live. We spent week-ends at their
+houses; we went on house parties as their guests. We heard them babble of
+the excitement of raising things on the land. We thought they meant garden
+truck. How were we to know they also meant mortgages? At the time it did
+not impress us as a fact worthy of being regarded as significant that we
+should find a different set of servants on the premises almost every time
+we went to visit one of these families.
+</p>
+<p>
+What fascinated us was the presence of fresh vegetables upon the table—not
+the car-sick, shopworn, wilted vegetables of the city markets, but really
+fresh vegetables; the new-laid eggs—after eating the other kind so
+long we knew they were new-laid without being told; the flower beds
+outside and the great bouquets of flowers inside the house; the milk that
+had come from a cow and not from a milkman; the home-made butter; the rich
+cream—and all.
+</p>
+<p>
+We heard their tales of rising at daybreak and going forth to pick from
+the vines the platter of breakfast berries, still beaded with the dew.
+They got up at daybreak, they said, especially on account of the berry
+picking and the beauties of the sunrise. Having formerly been city
+dwellers, they had sometimes stayed up for a sunrise; but never until now
+had they got up for one. The novelty appealed to them tremendously and
+they never tired of talking of it.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the country—so they told us—you never needed an alarm clock
+to rouse you at dawn. Subsequently, by personal experience, I found this
+to be true. You never need an alarm clock—if you keep chickens. You
+may not go to bed with the chickens, but you get up with them, unless you
+are a remarkably sound sleeper. When it comes to rousing the owner, from
+slumber before the sun shows, the big red rooster and the little brown hen
+are more dependable than any alarm clock ever assembled. You might forget
+to wind the alarm clock. The big red rooster winds himself. You might
+forget to set the alarm clock. The little brown hen does her own setting;
+and even in cases where she doesn't, she likes to wake up about
+four-forty-five and converse about her intentions in the matter in a
+shrill and penetrating tone of voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+It had been so long since I had lived in the country I had forgotten about
+the early-rising habits of barnyard fowl. I am an expert on the subject
+now. Only this morning there was a rooster suffering from hay fever or a
+touch of catarrh, or something that made him quite hoarse; and he strolled
+up from the chicken house to a point directly beneath my bedroom window,
+just as the first pink streaks of the new day were painting the eastern
+skies, and spent fully half an hour there clearing his throat.
+</p>
+<p>
+But I am getting ahead of my story. More and more we found the lure of the
+country was enmeshing our fancies. After each trip to the country we went
+back to town to find that, in our absence, the flat had somehow grown more
+stuffy and more crowded; that the streets had become more noisy and more
+congested. And the outcome of it with us was as the outcome has been with
+so many hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of others. We
+voted to go to the country to live.
+</p>
+<p>
+Having reached the decision, the next thing was to decide on the site and
+the setting for the great adventure. We unanimously set our faces against
+New Jersey, mainly because, to get from New Jersey over to New York and
+back again, you must take either the ferry or the tube; and if there was
+one thing on earth that we cared less for than the ferry it was the tube.
+To us it seemed that most of the desirable parts of Long Island were
+already preëmpted by persons of great wealth, living, so we gathered, in a
+state of discriminating aloofness and, as a general rule, avoiding social
+association with families in the humbler walks of life. Round New York the
+rich cannot be too careful—and seldom are. Most of them are
+suffering from nervous culture anyhow.
+</p>
+<p>
+Land in the lower counties of Connecticut, along the Sound, was too
+expensive for us to consider moving up there. But there remained what
+seemed to us then and what seems to us yet the most wonderful spot for
+country homes of persons in moderate circumstances anywhere within the New
+York zone, or anywhere else, for that matter—the hill country of the
+northern part of Westchester County, far enough back from the Hudson River
+to avoid the justly famous Hudson River glare in the summer, and close
+enough to it to enable a dweller to enjoy the Hudson River breezes and the
+incomparable Hudson River scenery.
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides, a lot of our friends lived there. There was quite a colony of
+them scattered over a belt of territory that intervened between the
+magnificent estates of the multi-millionaires to the southward and the
+real farming country beyond the Croton Lakes, up the valley. By a process
+of elimination we had now settled upon the neighborhood where we meant to
+live. The task of finding a suitable location in this particular area
+would be an easy one, we thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+I do not know how the news of this intention spread. We told only a few
+persons of our purpose. But spread it did, and with miraculous swiftness.
+Overnight almost, we began to hear from real-estate agents having other
+people's property to sell and from real-estate owners having their own
+property to sell. They reached us by mail, by telephone, by messenger, and
+in person. It was a perfect revelation to learn that so many perfectly
+situated, perfectly appointed country places, for one reason or another,
+were to be had for such remarkable figures. Indeed, when we heard the
+actual amounts the figures were more than remarkable—they were
+absolutely startling. I am convinced that nothing is so easy to buy as a
+country place and nothing is so hard to sell. This observation is based
+upon our own experiences on the buying side and on the experiences of some
+of my acquaintances who want to sell—and who are taking it out in
+wanting.
+</p>
+<p>
+In addition to agents and owners, there came also road builders, well
+diggers, interior decorators, landscape gardeners, general contractors, an
+architect or so, agents for nurseries, tree-mending experts, professional
+foresters, persons desiring to be superintendent of our country place,
+persons wishful of taking care of our livestock for us—a whole shoal
+of them. It booted us nothing to explain that we had not yet bought a
+place; that we had not even looked at a place with the prospect of buying.
+Almost without exception these callers were willing to sit down with me
+and use up hours of my time telling me how well qualified they were to
+deliver the goods as soon as I had bought land, or even before I had
+bought it.
+</p>
+<p>
+From the ruck of them as they came avalanching down upon us two or three
+faces and individualities stand out. There was, for example, the chimney
+expert. That was what he called himself—a chimney expert. His
+specialty was constructing chimneys that were guaranteed against smoking,
+and curing chimneys, built by others, which had contracted the vice. The
+circumstance of our not having any chimneys of any variety at the moment
+did not halt him when I had stated that fact to him. He had already
+removed his hat and overcoat and taken a seat in my study, and he
+continued to remain right there. He seemed comfortable; in fact, I believe
+he said he was comfortable.
+</p>
+<p>
+From chimneys he branched out into a general conversation with me upon the
+topics of the day.
+</p>
+<p>
+In my time I have met persons who knew less about a wider range of
+subjects than he did, but they had superior advantages over him. Some had
+traveled about over the world, picking up misinformation; some had been
+educated into a broad and comprehensive ignorance. But here was a
+self-taught ignoramus—one, you might say, who had made himself what
+he was. He may have known all about the habits and shortcomings of flues;
+but, once you let him out of a chimney, he was adrift on an uncharted sea
+of mispronounced names, misstated facts and faulty dates.
+</p>
+<p>
+We discussed the war—or, rather, he erroneously discussed it. We
+discussed politics and first one thing and then another, until finally the
+talk worked its way round to literature; and then it was he told me I was
+one of his favorite authors. “Well,” I said to myself, at that, “this
+person may be shy in some of his departments, but he's all right in
+others.” And then, aloud, I told him that he interested me and asked him
+to go on.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, sir,” he continued; “I don't care what anybody says, you certainly
+did write one mighty funny book, anyhow. You've wrote some books that I
+didn't keer so much for; but this here book, ef it's give me one laugh
+it's give me a thousand! I can come in dead tired out and pick it up and
+read a page—yes, read only two or three lines sometimes—and
+just natchelly bust my sides. How you ever come to think up all them
+comical sayings I don't, for the life of me, see! I wonder how these other
+fellers that calls themselves humorists have got the nerve to keep on
+tryin' to write when they read that book of yours.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“What did you say the name of this particular book was?” I asked, warming
+to the man in spite of myself.
+</p>
+<p>
+“It's called Fables in Slang,” he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+I did not undeceive him. He had spoiled my day for me. Why should I spoil
+his?
+</p>
+<p>
+Then, there was the persistent nursery-man's agent, with the teeth. He was
+the most toothsome being I ever saw. The moment he came in, the thought
+occurred to me that in his youth somebody had put tooth powders into his
+coffee. He may not have had any more teeth than some people have, but he
+had a way of presenting his when he smiled or when he spoke, or even when
+his face was in repose, which gave him the effect of being practically all
+teeth. Aside from his teeth, the most noticeable thing about him was his
+persistence. I began protesting that it would be but a waste of his time
+and mine to take up the subject of fruit and shade trees and shrubbery,
+because, even though I might care to invest in his lines, I had at present
+no soil in which to plant them. But he seemed to regard this as a mere
+technicality on my part, and before I was anywhere near done with what I
+meant to say to him he had one arm round me and was filling my lap and my
+arms and my desk-top with catalogues, price lists, illustrations in color,
+order slips, and other literature dealing with the products of the house
+he represented.
+</p>
+<p>
+I did my feeble best to fight him off; but it was of no use. He just
+naturally surrounded me. Inside of three minutes he had me as thoroughly
+mined, flanked and invested as though he'd been Grant and I'd been
+Richmond. I could tell he was prepared to stay right on until I
+capitulated.
+</p>
+<p>
+So, in order for me to be able to live my own life, it became necessary to
+give him an order. I made it as small an order as possible, because, as I
+have just said and as I told him repeatedly, I had no place in which to
+plant the things I bought of him, and could not tell when I should have a
+place in which to plant them. That petty detail did not concern him in the
+least. He promised to postpone delivery until I had taken title to some
+land somewhere; and then he smiled his all-ivory smile and released me
+from captivity, and took his departure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Two months later, when we had joined the landed classes, the consignment
+arrived—peach, pear, quince, cherry and apple. I was quite shocked
+at the appearance of the various items when we undid the wrappings. The
+pictures from which I had made my selections showed splendid trees, thick
+with foliage and laden with the most delicious fruit imaginable. But here,
+seemingly, was merely a collection of golf clubs in a crude and unfinished
+state—that is to say, they were about the right length and the right
+thickness to make golf clubs, but were unfinished to the extent that they
+had small tentacles or roots adhering to them at their butt ends.
+</p>
+<p>
+However, our gardener—we had acquired a gardener by then—was
+of the opinion that they might develop into something. Having advanced
+this exceedingly sanguine and optimistic belief, he took out a
+pocket-knife and further maimed the poor little things by pruning off
+certain minute sprouts or nubs or sprigs that grew upon them; and then he
+stuck them in the earth. Nevertheless, they grew. At this hour they are
+still growing, and in time I think they may bear fruit. As a promise of
+future productivity they bore leaves during the summer—not many
+leaves, but still enough leaves to keep them from looking so much like
+walking sticks, and just enough leaves to nourish certain varieties of
+worms.
+</p>
+<p>
+I sincerely trust the reader will not think I have been exaggerating in
+detailing my dealings with the artificers, agents and solicitors who
+descended upon us when the hue and cry—personally I have never seen
+a hue, nor, to the best of my knowledge, have I ever heard one; but it is
+customary to speak of it in connection with a cry and I do so—when,
+as I say, the presumable hue and the indubitable cry were raised in regard
+to our ambition to own a country place. Believe me, I am but telling the
+plain, unvarnished truth. And now we come to the home-seeking enterprise:
+</p>
+<p>
+Sometimes alone, but more frequently in the company of friends, we toured
+Westchester, its main highways and its back roads, its nooks and its
+corners, until we felt that we knew its topography much better than many
+born and reared in it. Reason totters on her throne when confronted with
+the task of trying to remember how many places we looked at—places
+done, places overdone, places underdone, and places undone. Wherever we
+went, though, one of two baffling situations invariably arose: If we liked
+a place the price for that place uniformly would be out of our financial
+reach. If the price were within our reach the place failed to satisfy our
+desires.
+</p>
+<p>
+After weeks of questing about, we did almost close for one estate. It was
+an estate where a rich man, who made his money in town and spent it in the
+country, had invested a fortune in apple trees. The trees were there—several
+thousand of them; but they were all such young trees. It would be several
+years before they would begin to bear, and meantime the services of a
+small army of men would be required to care for the orchards and prune
+them, and spray them, and coddle them, and chase insects away from them. I
+calculated that if we bought this place it would cost me about seven
+thousand dollars a year for five years ahead in order to enjoy three weeks
+of pink-and-white beauty in the blossoming time each spring.
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides, it occurred to me that by the time the trees did begin to bear
+plentifully the fashionable folk in New York might quit eating apples; in
+which case everybody else would undoubtedly follow suit and quit eating
+them too. Ours is a fickle race, as witness the passing of the vogue for
+iron dogs on front lawns, and for cut-glass vinegar cruets on the dinner
+table; and a lot of other things, fashionable once but unfashionable now.
+</p>
+<p>
+Also, the house stood on a bluff directly overlooking the river, with the
+tracks of the New York Central in plain view and trains constantly
+ski-hooting by. At the time of our inspection of the premises, long
+restless strings of freight cars were backing in and out of sidings not
+more than a quarter of a mile away. We were prepared, after we had moved
+to the country, to rise with the skylarks, but we could not see the
+advantage to be derived from rising with the switch engines. Switch
+engines are notorious for keeping early hours; or possibly the engineers
+suffer from insomnia.
+</p>
+<p>
+At length we decided to buy an undeveloped tract and do our own
+developing. In pursuance of this altered plan we climbed craggy heights
+with fine views to be had from their crests, but with no water anywhere
+near; and we waded through marshy meadows, where there was any amount of
+water but no views. This was discouraging; but we persevered, and
+eventually perseverance found its reward. Thanks to some kindly souls who
+guided us to it, we found what we thought we wanted.
+</p>
+<p>
+We found a sixty-acre tract on a fine road less than a mile and a half
+from one of the best towns in the lower Hudson Valley. It combined
+accessibility with privacy; for after you quitted the cleared lands at the
+front of the property, and entered the woodland at the back, you were
+instantly in a stretch of timber which by rights belonged in the
+Adirondacks. About a third of the land was cleared—or, rather, had
+been cleared once upon a time. The rest was virgin forest running up to
+the comb of a little mountain, from the top of which you might see, spread
+out before you and below you, a panorama with a sweep of perhaps forty
+miles round three sides of the horizon.
+</p>
+<p>
+There were dells, glades, steep bluffs and rolling stretches of fallow
+land; there were seven springs on the place; there was a cloven rift in
+the hill with a fine little valley at the bottom of it, and the first time
+I clambered up its slope from the bottom I flushed a big cock grouse that
+went booming away through the underbrush with a noise like a burst of baby
+thunder. That settled it for me. All my life I have been trying to kill a
+grouse on the wing, and here was a target right on the premises. Next day
+we signed the papers and paid over the binder money. We were landowners.
+Presently we had a deed in the safe-deposit box and some notes in the bank
+to prove it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Over most of our friends we had one advantage. They had taken
+old-fashioned farms and made them over into modern country places. But
+once upon a time, sixty or seventy years back, the place of which we were
+now the proud proprietors had been the property of a man of means and good
+taste, a college professor; and, by the somewhat primitive standards of
+those days, it had been an estate of considerable pretensions.
+</p>
+<p>
+This gentleman had done things of which we were now the legatees. For
+example, he had spared the fine big trees, which grew about the dooryard
+of his house; and when he had cleared the tillable acres he had left in
+them here and there little thickets and little rocky copses which stood up
+like islands from the green expanses of his meadows. The pioneer American
+farmer's idea of a tree in a field or on a lawn was something that could
+be cut down right away. Also the original owner had planted orchards of
+apples and groves of cherries; and he had thrown up stout stone walls,
+which still stood in fair order.
+</p>
+<p>
+But—alas!—he had been dead for more than forty years. And
+during most of those forty years his estate had been in possession of an
+absentee landlord, a woman, who allowed a squatter to live on the
+property, rent free, upon one unusual condition—namely, that he
+repair nothing, change nothing, improve nothing, and, except for the patch
+where he grew his garden truck, till no land. As well as might be judged
+by the present conditions, the squatter had lived up to the contract. If a
+windowpane was smashed he stuffed up the orifice with rags; if a roof
+broke away he patched the hole with scraps of tarred paper; if a tree fell
+its molder-ing trunk stayed where it lay; if brambles sprang up they
+flourished unvexed by bush hook or pruning blade.
+</p>
+<p>
+Buried in this wilderness was an old frame residence, slanting tipsily on
+its rotted sills; and the cellar under it was a noisome damp hole, half
+filled with stones that had dropped out of the tottering foundation walls.
+There was a farmer's cottage which from decay and neglect seemed ready to
+topple over; likewise the remains of a cow barn, where no self-respecting
+cow would voluntarily spend a night; the moldy ruins of a coach house, an
+ice house and a chicken house; and flanking these, piles of broken,
+crumbling boards to mark the sites of sundry cribs and sheds.
+</p>
+<p>
+The barn alone had resisted neglect and the gnawing tooth of time. This
+was because it had been built in the time when barns were built to stay.
+It had big, hand-hewn oak sticks for its beams and rafters and sills; and
+though its roof was a lacework of rotted shingles and its sides were full
+of gaps to let the weather in, its frame was as solid and enduring as on
+the day when it was finished. This, in short and in fine, was what we in
+our ignorance had acquired. To us it was a splendid asset. Persons who
+knew more than we did might have called it a liability.
+</p>
+<p>
+All our friends, though, were most sanguine and most cheerful regarding
+the prospect. Jauntily and with few words they dismissed the difficulties
+of the prospect that faced us; and with the same jauntiness we, also,
+dismissed them.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, you won't have so very much to do!” I hear them saying. “To be sure,
+there's a road to be built—not over a quarter of a mile of road,
+exclusive of the turnround at your garage—when you've built your
+garage—and the turn in front of your house—when you've built
+your house. It shouldn't take you long to clear up the fields and get them
+under cultivation. All you'll have to do there is pick the loose stones
+off of them and plow the land up, and harrow it and grade it in places,
+and spread a few hundred wagonloads of fertilizer; and then sow your grass
+seed. That old horsepond yonder will make you a perfectly lovely swimming
+pool, once you've cleaned it out and deepened it at this end, and built
+retaining walls round it, and put in a concrete basin, and waterproofed
+the sides and bottom. You must have a swimming pool by all means!
+</p>
+<p>
+“And then, by running a hundred-foot dam across that low place in the
+valley you can have a wonderful little lake. You surely must have a lake
+to go with the swimming pool! Then, when you've dug your artesian well,
+you can couple up all your springs for an emergency supply. You know you
+can easily pipe the spring water into a tank and conserve it there. Then
+you'll have all the water you possibly can need—except, of course,
+in very dry weather in mid-summer.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And, after that, when you've torn the old house down and put up your new
+house, and built your barn and your stable, and your farmer's cottage and
+your ice house, and your greenhouses, and your corn-crib, and your
+tool-shed, and your tennis court, and laid out some terraces up on that
+hillside yonder, and planned out your flower gardens and your vegetable
+garden, and your potato patch and your corn patch, and stuck up your
+chicken runs, and bought your work stock and your cows and chickens and
+things—oh, yes, and your kennels, if you are going in for dogs—No?
+All right, then; never mind the kennels. Anyhow, when you've done those
+things and set out your shrubs and made your rose beds and planted your
+grapevines, you'll be all ready just to move right in and settle down and
+enjoy yourselves.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I do not mean that all of these suggestions came at once. As here
+enumerated they represent the combined fruitage of several conversations
+on the subject. We listened attentively, making notes of the various
+notions for our comfort and satisfaction as they occurred to others. If
+any one had advanced the idea that we should install a private race track,
+and lay out nine holes, say, of a private golf course, we should have
+agreed to those items too. These things do sound so easy when you are
+talking them over and when the first splendid fever of land ownership is
+upon you!
+</p>
+<p>
+Had I but known then what I know now! These times, when, going along the
+road, I pass a manure heap I am filled with envy of the plutocrat who owns
+it, though, at the same time, deploring the vulgar ostentation that leads
+him to spread his wealth before the view of the public. When I see a
+masonry wall along the front of an estate I begin to make mental
+calculations, for I understand now what that masonry costs, and know that
+it is cheaper, in the long run, to have your walls erected by a lapidary
+than by a union stonemason.
+</p>
+<p>
+And as for a bluestone road—well, you, reader, may think bluestone
+is but a simple thing and an inexpensive one. Just wait until you have had
+handed to you the estimates on the cost of killing the nerve and cleaning
+out the cavities and inserting the fillings, and putting in the falsework
+and the bridgework, and the drains and the arches—and all! You might
+think dentists are well paid for such jobs; but a professional road
+contractor—I started to say road agent—makes any dentist look
+a perfect piker.
+</p>
+<p>
+And any time you feel you really must have a swimming pool that is all
+your very own, take my advice and think twice. Think oftener than twice;
+and then compromise on a neat little outdoor sitz bath that is all your
+very own.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the inner knowledge of these things was to come to us later. For the
+time being, pending the letting of contracts, we were content to enjoy the
+two most pleasurable sensations mortals may know—possession and
+anticipation: the sense of the reality of present ownership and, coupled
+with this, dreams of future creation and future achievement. We were on
+the verge of making come true the treasured vision of months—we were
+about to become abandoned farmers.
+</p>
+<p>
+No being who is blessed with imagination can have any finer joy than this,
+I think—the joy of proprietorship of a strip of the green footstool.
+The soil you kick up when you walk over your acres is different soil from
+that which you kick up on your neighbor's land—different because it
+is yours. Another man's tree, another man's rock heap, is a simple tree or
+a mere rock heap, as the case may be; and nothing more. But your tree and
+your rock heap assume a peculiar value, a special interest, a unique and
+individual picturesqueness.
+</p>
+<p>
+And oh, the thrill that permeates your being when you see the first furrow
+of brown earth turned up in your field, or the first shovel-load of sod
+lifted from the spot where your home is to stand! And oh, the first walk
+through the budding woods in the springtime! And the first spray of
+trailing arbutus! And the first spray of trailing poison ivy! And the
+first mortgage! And the first time you tread on one of those large slick
+brown worms, designed, inside and out, like a chocolate éclair!
+</p>
+<p>
+After all, it's the only life! But on the way to it there are pitfalls and
+obstacles and setbacks, and steadily mounting monthly pay rolls.
+</p>
+<p>
+As shall presently develop.
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER IV. HAPPY DAYS FOR MAJOR GLOOM
+</h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>oon after we moved to the country we became eligible to join the
+Westchester County Despair Association, on account of an artesian well—or,
+to be exact, on account of three artesian wells, complicated with several
+springs.
+</p>
+<p>
+I spoke some pages back of the Westchester County Despair Association,
+which was founded by George Creel and which has a large membership in our
+immediate section. As I stated then, any city-bred man who turns amateur
+farmer and moves into our neighborhood, and who in developing his country
+place has a streak of hard labor, is eligible to join this organization.
+And sooner or later—but as a general thing sooner—all the
+urbanites who settle up our way do join. Some day we shall be strong
+enough to club in and elect our own county officers on a ticket pledged to
+run a macadam highway past the estate of each member.
+</p>
+<p>
+Our main claim to qualification was based upon the water question; and yet
+at the outset it appeared to us that lack of water would be the very least
+of our troubles. When we took title to our abandoned farm, and for the
+first time explored the bramble-grown valley leading up from the proposed
+site of our house to the woodland, we several times had to wade, and once
+or twice thought we should have to swim. Why, we actually congratulated
+ourselves upon having acquired riparian rights without paying for them.
+</p>
+<p>
+This was in the springtime; and the springs along the haunches of the
+hills upon either side of the little ravine were speaking in burbly
+murmuring voices, like overflowing mouths, as they spilled forth their
+accumulated store of the melted snows of the winter before; and the April
+rainstorms had made a pond of every low place in the county.
+</p>
+<p>
+In our ignorance we assumed that, since there was now plenty of water of
+Nature's furnishing, there always would be plenty of water forthcoming
+from the same prodigal source—more water than we could possibly ever
+need unless we opened up a fresh-water bathing beach in the lower meadow
+of our place. So we dug out and stoned up the uppermost spring, which
+seemed to have the most generous vein of them all, and put in pipes. The
+lay of the land and the laws of gravity did the rest, bringing the flow
+downgrade in a gurgling comforting stream, which poured day and night
+without cessation.
+</p>
+<p>
+This detail having been attended to, we turned our attention to other
+things. Goodness knows there were plenty of things requiring attention. I
+figured at that period of our pioneering work that if we got into the
+Despair Association at all it would follow as the result of my being
+indicted for more or less justifiable manslaughter in having destroyed an
+elderly gentleman of the vicinity, whom upon the occasion of our first
+meeting I rechristened as Old Major Gloom, and of whom we still speak
+behind his back by that same name.
+</p>
+<p>
+The major lived a short distance from us, within easy walking distance,
+and he speedily proved that he was an easy walker. I shall not forget the
+first day he came to call. He ambled up a trail that the previous tenants,
+through a chronic delusion, had insisted upon calling a road; and he found
+me up to my gills in the midst of the preliminary job of trying to decide
+where we should make a start at clearing out the jungle, which once upon a
+time, probably back in the Stone Age, as nearly as we might judge from its
+present condition, had been the house garden.
+</p>
+<p>
+We had been camping on the place only a few days. We climbed over, through
+and under mystic mazes of household belongings to get our meals, or to get
+to our beds, or to get anywhere, and altogether were existing in a state
+of disorder that might be likened to the condition the Germans created
+with such thoroughgoing and painstaking efficiency when falling back from
+an occupied French community.
+</p>
+<p>
+I trust we are not lacking in hospitality; but, for the moment, we were in
+no mood to receive visitors. However, upon first judgment the old major's
+appearance was such as to disarm hostility and re-arouse the slumbering
+instincts of cordiality. He was of a benevolent aspect, with fine white
+whiskers and an engaging manner. If you can imagine one of the Minor
+Prophets, who had stepped right out of the Old Testament, stopping en
+route at a ready-made clothing store, you will have a very fair mental
+picture of the major as he looked when he approached me, with hand
+outstretched, and in warm tones bade me welcome to Upper Westchester. He
+fooled me; he would have fooled anybody unless possibly it were an expert
+criminologist, trained at discerning depravity when masked behind a
+pleasing exterior.
+</p>
+<p>
+When he spoke I placed him with regard to his antecedents, for I had been
+on the spot long enough to recognize the breed to which he belonged. There
+is a type of native-born citizen of this part of New York State who comes
+of an undiluted New England strain, being the descendant of pioneering
+Yankees who settled along the lower Hudson Valley after the Revolution and
+immediately started in to trade the original Dutch settlers out of their
+lands and their eyeteeth.
+</p>
+<p>
+The subsequent generations of this transplanted stock have preserved some
+of the customs and many of the idioms of their stern and rock-bound
+forebears; at the same time they have acquired most of the linguistic
+eccentricities of the New York cockney. Except that they dwell in
+proximity to it, they have nothing in common with the great city that is
+only thirty or forty miles away as the motorist flies. Generally they
+profess a contempt for New York and all its works. They may not visit it
+once a year; but, all the same, its influence has crept up through the
+hills to tincture their mode of speech with queer distinctive modes of
+pronunciation.
+</p>
+<p>
+The result is a composite dialectic system not to be found anywhere else
+except in this little strip of upland country and in certain isolated
+communities over on Long Island, along the outer edge of the zone of
+metropolitan life and excitement. For instance, a member of this race of
+beings will call a raspberry a “rosbry”; and he will call a bluebird a
+“blubbud,” thereby displaying the inherited vernacular of the Down East
+country. He will say “oily” when he means early, and “early” when he means
+oily, and occasionally he will even say “yous” for you—peculiarities
+which in other environment serve unmistakably to mark the born-and-bred
+Manhattanite.
+</p>
+<p>
+The major at once betrayed himself as such a person. He introduced
+himself, adding that as a neighbor he had felt it incumbent to call. I
+removed a couple of the family portraits and a collection of Indian relics
+and a few kitchen utensils, and one thing and another, from the seat of a
+chair, and begged him to sit down and make himself at home, which he did.
+He accepted a cigar, which I fished out of a humidor temporarily tucked
+away beneath a roll of carpet; and we spoke of the weather, to which he
+gave a qualified and cautious indorsement. Then, without further delay, he
+hitched his chair over and laid a paternal hand upon my arm.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I hear you've got Blank, the lawyer, searching out the title to your
+propputty here.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” I said; “Mr. Blank took the matter in hand for us. Fine man, isn't
+he?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Well, some people think so,” he said with an emphasis of profound
+significance.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Doesn't everybody think so?” I inquired. “Listen,” he said; “my motto is,
+Live and let live. And, anyhow, I'm the last man in the world to go round
+prejudicing a newcomer against an old resident. Now I've just met you and,
+on the other hand, I've known Blank all my life; in fact, we're sort of
+related by marriage—a relative of his married a relative of my
+wife's. So, of course, I've got nothing to say to you on that score except
+this—and I'm going to say it to you now in the strictest confidence—if
+I was doing business with Blank I'd be mighty, mighty careful, young man.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“You astonish me,” I said. “Mr. So-and-So”—naming a prominent
+business man of the county seat—“recommended his firm to me.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Oh, So-and-So, eh? I wonder what the understanding between those two is?
+Probably they've hatched up something.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Why, isn't So-and-So above suspicion?” I asked. “I wouldn't say he was
+and I wouldn't say he wasn't. But, just between you and me, I'd think
+twice about taking any advice he gave me. They tell me you've let the
+contract for some work to Dash & Space?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Yes; I gave them one small job.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Too bad!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“What's too bad?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“You'll be finding out for yourself before you're done; so I won't say
+anything more on that subject neither. I could tell you a good deal about
+those fellows if I was a-mind to; but I never believed in repeating
+anything behind a man's back I wouldn't say to his face. Live and let
+live!—that's my motto. Anyhow, if you've already signed up with Dash
+& Space it's too late for you to be backing out—but keep your
+eyes open, young man; keep your eyes wide open. Who's your architect going
+to be?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I told him. He repeated the name in rather a disappointed fashion.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Never heard of him,” he admitted; “but I take it he's like the run of his
+kind of people. I never yet saw the architect that I'd trust as far as I
+could sling him by the coat-tails. Say, ain't that Bink's delivery wagon
+standing over yonder in front of your stable?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“I think so. We've been buying some things from Bink.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“You've opened up a regular account with him, then?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Yes.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Well, I wouldn't reflect on Bink's honesty for any amount of money in the
+world. Of my own knowledge I don't know anything against him one way or
+the other. Of course, from time to time I've heard a lot of things that
+other people said about him; but that's only hearsay evidence, and I make
+it a rule not to repeat gossip about anybody. Still”—he lingered
+over the word—“still, if it was me instead of you, I'd go over his
+bills very carefully—that's all!
+</p>
+<p>
+“I don't blame any fellow for trying to get along in his business; and I
+guess the competition is so keen in the retail merchandising line that
+oncet in a while a man just naturally has to skin his customers a little.
+But that's no argument why he should try to take the entire hide off of
+'em. They tell me Bink's bookkeeper is a regular wizard when it comes to
+making up an account, 'specially for a stranger.” He took a puff or two at
+his cigar, meantime squinting across our weed-grown fields. “Don't I see
+'Lonzo Begee chopping dead trees down there alongside the road?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Yes; I believe that's his name. He only came to work for us this morning.
+Seems to be a hustler.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Does he, now? Well, ain't it a curious circumstance how many fellers
+starting in at a new job just naturally work their heads off and wind up
+at the end of the second week loafing? Strikes me that's particularly the
+case with the farm laborers round here. Now you take 'Lonzo Begee's case.
+He never worked for me—I'm mighty careful about who I hire, lemme
+tell you!—but it always struck me as a strange thing that 'Lonzo
+changes jobs so often. I make it a point to keep an eye on what's
+happening in this neighborhood; and seems like every time I run acrost him
+he's working in a different place for a different party.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And yet you never can tell—he might turn out to be a satisfactory
+hand for you. Stranger things have happened. And besides, what suits one
+man don't suit another. I believe in letting a man find out about these
+things for himself. The bitterer the experience and the more it costs him,
+the more likely he is to remember the lesson and profit by it. Don't you
+think so yourself?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I told him I thought so; and presently he took his departure, after
+remarking that we had purchased a place with a good many possibilities in
+it; though, from what he had heard, we probably paid too much for it, and
+he only hoped we didn't waste too much money in developing. He left me
+filled with so many doubts and so many misgivings that I felt congested.
+Within two days he was back, though, still actuated by the neighborly
+spirit, to warn me against a few more persons with whom we had already had
+dealings, or with whom we expected to have dealings, or with whom
+conceivably we might some day have dealings.
+</p>
+<p>
+And within a week after that he returned a third time to put me on my
+guard against one or two more individuals who somehow had been overlooked
+by him in his previous visits. Rarely did he come out in the open and
+accuse anybody of anything. He was too crafty, too subtle for that. The
+major was a regular sutler. But he certainly did understand the art of
+planting the poison. Give him time enough, and he could destroy a fellow's
+confidence in the entire human race.
+</p>
+<p>
+He specialized in no single direction; his gifts were ample for all
+emergencies. When he tired of making you distrustful of those about you,
+or when temporarily he ran out of material, he knew the knack of making
+you distrustful of your own judgment. For example, there was the time, in
+the second month of our acquaintance I think it was, when he meandered in
+to inspect the work of renovation that had just been started on the
+stable. He spent perhaps ten minutes going over the premises, now and then
+uttering low, disparaging, clucking sounds under his breath. I followed
+him about fearsomely. I was distressed on account of the disclosures that
+I felt would presently be forthcoming.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Putting on a slate roof, eh?” he said when he was done with the
+investigation. “Expect it to stay put?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I admitted that such had been the calculation of the builder.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Nothing like being one of these here optimists,” he commented dryly. “But
+I want to tell you that it's the biggest mistake you ever made to put a
+slate roof on those sloping gables without sticking in some metal uprights
+to keep the snow from sliding off in a lump when the winter thaws come.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+It had always seemed to me that snow had few enough pleasures as it was.
+Though I had given the subject but little thought, it appeared to me that
+if sliding off a roof gave the snow any satisfaction it would ill become
+me or any one else to interfere. I ventured to say as much.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I guess you don't get my meaning,” he explained. “When the snow starts
+sliding, if there's enough of it, it's purty sure to take most of those
+slates along with it. And then where'll you be, I want to know?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Is—is it too late to put up some anti-sliding thingumbobs now?” I
+asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes,” he said comfortingly; “it's too late now unless you ripped the
+whole job off and started all over again. I judge you'll just have to let
+Nature take its course. I see you've got a chimney that don't come over
+the ridge of the roof. Are you calculating that it'll draw?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“I rather hoped it would—that was the intention, I believe.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Well, then, you're in for another disappointment there. But if I was you
+I shouldn't fret myself about that, because it'll be some months yet
+before you'll be building a fire in the fireplace, what with the warm
+weather just coming on; and you can have the top of the chimney lifted
+almost any time.... I don't want to alarm you needlessly; but it looks to
+me like mighty faulty drainpipes the plumber's been putting in for you.
+You'll have to snatch all that out before a great while and have new pipes
+put in proper. Don't it beat all what sharpers plumbers are? But then,
+they're no worse than other artisans, taking them by and large. F'r
+instance, what could be a worse job than that plastering in your bedroom,
+or those tin gutters up yonder at your eaves? The plastering may stay up a
+while, but the first good hard storm ought to bring the gutters down. I
+don't like your masonry work, either, if you're asking me for my opinion;
+and I see the carpenters are slipping in some mighty sorry-looking
+flooring on you.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I am not exaggerating. I am repeating, as accurately as I can, a
+conversation that really took place.
+</p>
+<p>
+For a while the major was in a fair way to spoil the present century for
+me. If the inhabitants of the countryside were in a conspiracy to strip
+the pelfry off a fresh arrival and divide it among them as souvenirs, if
+there was no honesty left anywhere in a corrupted world, what, then, was
+the use of living? Why not commit suicide according to one of the standard
+methods and have done with the struggle, trusting that the undertaker
+would not be too much of a gouge and that the executors of the estate
+would leave a trifle of it for the widow and the orphan?
+</p>
+<p>
+But, after a spell, during which from the various firms, corporations and
+persons who had been traduced by him we uniformly had considerate and fair
+and scrupulously honorable treatment and service, we began to disregard
+the major's danger signals and to steer right past them. He, though,
+wearied not in well-doing. At every chance he dropped in, a poison viper
+disguised as a philanthropist, to hang another red light on the switch for
+us. It was inevitable that his ministrations should get on our nerves. I
+began to have visions centering about justifiable acts of homicide, always
+with the major for the chosen victim of my violence.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was after having such a dream that I figured myself as getting into
+George Creel's Despair Association by virtue of having to stand trial over
+at White Plains for murder. As a matter of fact, I spared the major; and
+at last accounts he was still going to and fro in the land, planting
+slanders on all likely sites. I take it that there is one counterpart for
+him among every so many human beings; but it is in the country where every
+one has a chance to find out every one's business, and where the excuses
+of being neighborly and friendly give him opportunity for plying his trade
+that he is most in evidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER V. IN WHICH WE BORE FOE WATER
+</h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>e joined the Despair Association finally by reason of our water problem.
+However, that was to come into our lives later. Through the springtime we
+had more water than we could possibly hope to use, and we focused our
+attentions and our energies upon hacking a homestead out of the briar
+patch we had bought.
+</p>
+<p>
+A painful acre at a time, we cleared lands that once had been cleared. As
+I may have stated already, forty-odd years of disuse had turned lawn
+space, garden space and meadow into one conglomerate jungle of towering
+weeds and tangled thorny underbrush, stretching from the broken fences
+along the highroad straight back to the dooryard of the moldering
+tumbledown dwelling. With a gang of men under a competent foreman, and a
+double team of hired horses, we assaulted that tangle, bringing to the
+undertaking much of the same ardor and some of the same fortitude which I
+imagine must have inspired Stanley on the day when he began chopping his
+way through the trackless wilds of the dark forest to find Doctor
+Livingstone.
+</p>
+<p>
+It gave one the feeling of being a pioneer and a pathfinder—no, not
+a pathfinder; a pathmaker—to stand by, superintending in a large,
+broad, general, perfectly ignorant fashion the job of opening up those
+thickets of ours to the sunlight that had not visited them for ever so
+long. Off of one segment of our property, a slope directly behind the main
+house, we took over four hundred wagonloads of stumps, roots, trunks,
+boughs and brush—the fruitage of nearly two months of steady labor
+on the part of men and horses.
+</p>
+<p>
+The brambles were shorn down and piled in heaps to be burned. The locusts,
+thousands of them, varying in size from half-grown trees to switchy
+saplings, were by main force snatched out of the ground bodily. A number
+of long-dead chestnuts and hickories, great unsightly snags that reared
+above the uptom harried earth like monuments to past neglect, were felled
+and sawed into cordwood lengths and carted away.
+</p>
+<p>
+What emerged after these things had been done more than repaid us for all
+our pains. When the rumpled soil had been smoothed back and plowed and
+harrowed, and sown to grass, and when the grass had sprouted as promptly
+as it did, there stood forth a dimpling green expanse where before had
+been a damp, moldy and almost impenetrable tangle, hiding treasure-troves
+of old tin cans, heaps of rusted and broken farming implements and here
+and there the bleached-out bones of a dead cow or a deceased horse.
+</p>
+<p>
+To our abounding astonishment, we found ourselves the owners of a
+considerable number of old but healthy apple trees and a whole grove of
+cherry trees that we hadn't known were there at all, so thoroughly had
+they been buried in the locusts and the sumacs. It was just like finding
+them. Indeed, it was finding them.
+</p>
+<p>
+The old house came down next, with some slight assistance from a crew of
+wreckers. Being almost ready to come down of its own accord it met them
+halfway. They had merely to pry into the foundations, hit her a hard
+wallop in the ribs, and then run for their lives. From the wreckage we
+reclaimed, out of the cellar, which was pre-Revolutionary, some hand-hewn
+oak beams in a perfect state of preservation; and out of the upper floors,
+which were pre-James K. Polk, a quantity of interior trim, along with door
+frames and window sashes.
+</p>
+<p>
+Incidentally we dispossessed a large colony of rats and a whole synod of
+bats, a parish of yellow wasps and a small but active congregation of
+dissenting cats—half-wild, glary-eyed, roach-backed, mangy cats that
+resided under the broken flooring. In all there were fourteen of these
+cats—swift and rangy performers, all of them. One and all, they
+objected to being driven from home. They hung about the razed wreckage,
+and by night they convened in due form upon a bare knoll hard by, and held
+indignation meetings.
+</p>
+<p>
+Parliamentary disputes arose frequently, with the result that the
+proceedings might be heard for a considerable distance. I took steps to
+break up these deliberations, and after several of the principal debaters
+had met a sudden end—I am a very good wing shot on cats—the
+survivors saw their way clear to departing entirely from the vicinity.
+Within a week thereafter the song birds, which until then had been
+strangely scarce upon the premises, heard the news, and began coming in
+swarms. We put up nesting boxes and feeding shelves, and long before June
+arrived we had hundreds of feathered boarders and a good many pairs of
+feathered tenants.
+</p>
+<p>
+One morning in the early part of the month of June I counted within sight
+at one time fourteen varieties of birds, including such brilliantly
+colored specimens as a scarlet tanager and his mate; a Baltimore oriole; a
+bluebird; an indigo bunting; a chat; and a flicker—called, where I
+came from, a yellow hammer. Robins were probing for worms in the rank
+grass; two brown thrashers and a black-billed cuckoo were investigating
+the residential possibilities of a cedar tree not far away; and from the
+woods beyond came the sound of a cock grouse drumming his amorous fanfare
+on a log.
+</p>
+<p>
+Think of what that meant to a man who, for the better part of twelve
+years, had been hived up in a flat, with English sparrows for company,
+when he craved a bit of wild life!
+</p>
+<p>
+What had been a gardener's cottage stood at the roadside a hundred yards
+away from the site of the main house. On first examination it seemed fit
+only for the scrap heap; but one of those wise elderly persons who are to
+be found in nearly every rural community—a genius who was part
+carpenter, part mason, part painter, part glazier and part plasterer—was
+called into consultation, and he decided that, given time and material for
+mending, he might be able to do something with the shell. Modestly he
+called himself an odd-jobs man; really he was a doctor to decrepit and
+ailing structures.
+</p>
+<p>
+From neglect and dry rot the patient was almost gone; but he nursed it
+back to a new lease on life, trepanning its top with new rafters,
+splinting its broken sides with new clapboards. He cured the cellar walls
+of rickets, the roof of baldness, and the inside woodwork of tetter; and
+he so wrought with hammer and saw and nails, with lime and cement, with
+paintbrush and putty knife, that presently what had been a most
+disreputable blot on the landscape became not only a livable little house
+but an exceedingly picturesque one, what with its wide overhanging gables,
+its cocky little front veranda, and its new complexion of roughcast
+stucco.
+</p>
+<p>
+While this transformation was accomplished in the lower field, we were
+doing things to the barn up on the hillside. It had good square lines, the
+barn had; and, though its outer casing was in a woeful state of nonrepair,
+its frame, having been built sixty or seventy years ago of splendid big
+timbers, stood straight and unskewed. Thanks to the ability of our
+architect to dream an artistic dream and then to create it, this
+structure, without impairment of its general lines and with no change at
+all in its general dimensions, presently became a combination garage and
+bungalow.
+</p>
+<p>
+The garage part was down below, occupying the space formerly given over to
+horse stalls and cow sheds. Here, also, a furnace room, a laundry and a
+servant's room were built in. Above were the housekeeping quarters—three
+bedrooms; two baths; a big living hall, with a wide-mouthed fireplace in
+it; a kitchen, and a pantry. This floor had been the haymow; but I'll
+warrant that if any of the long-vanished hay which once rested there could
+have returned it wouldn't have known the old place.
+</p>
+<p>
+The roof of the transmogrified mow was sufficiently high to permit the
+construction of a roomy attic, with accommodations for one sleeper at one
+end of it, and ample storage space besides.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the back of the building, where the teams had driven in, a little
+square courtyard of weathered brick was laid; a roof of rough Vermont
+slate was laid on in an irregular splotchy pattern of buff and yellow and
+black squares; and finally, upon the front, at the level of the second
+floor, the builder hung on a little Italian balcony, from which on clear
+days, looking south down the Hudson, we have a forty-mile stretch of
+landscape and waterscape before us.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the nearer bank, two miles away, the spires of the market town show
+above the tree tops; on the further bank, six miles away, the rumpled blue
+outlines of the Ramapo Hills bulk up against the sky line; and back of
+those hills are sunsets such as ambitious artists try, more or less
+unsuccessfully, to put on canvas.
+</p>
+<p>
+All this had not cost so much as it might have, because all the interior
+trim, all the doors and windows, and all the studs and joists and beams
+had been reclaimed from the demolished main building. The chief
+extravagances had been a facing of stonework for the garage front and a
+stucco dress for the upper walls. We broke camp and moved in.
+</p>
+<p>
+For a month or so we went along swimmingly. One morning we quit swimming.
+All of a sudden we woke up to find there was no longer sufficient water
+for aquatic pastimes.
+</p>
+<p>
+The absolutely unprecedented dry spell that occurs every second or third
+year in this part of the North Temperate Zone had descended upon us,
+taking us, as it were, unawares. The brooks were going dry; the grass on
+hillsides where the soil was thin turned from a luscious green to a
+parched brown; and the mother spring of our seven up the valley, which had
+gushed so plenteously, now diminished overnight, as it were, into a puny
+runlet. There were no indications that the spring would be absolutely dry;
+but there was every indication that it would continue to lessen in the
+volume of its output—which it did. We summoned friends and
+well-wishers into consultation, and by them were advised to dig an
+artesian well.
+</p>
+<p>
+We did not want to bother with artesian wells then. We were living very
+comfortably upstairs over the garage and we were planning the house we
+meant to build. We had drawn plans, and yet more plans, torn them up and
+started all over again; and had found doing this to be one of the deepest
+pleasures of life. Time without end we had conferred with friends who had
+built houses of their own, and who gave us their ideas of the things which
+would be absolutely indispensable to our comfort and happiness in our new
+house. We had incorporated these ideas with a few of our own, and then we
+had found that if we meant to construct a house which would please all
+concerned, ourselves included, there would be needed a bond issue to float
+the enterprise and the completed structure would be about the size of a
+cathedral. So then we would trim down, paring off a breakfast porch here
+and a conservatory there, until we had a design for a compact edifice not
+much larger than an averagesized railroad terminal.
+</p>
+<p>
+Between times, when not engaged in the pleasing occupation of building our
+house on paper, we chose the site where it should stand. This, also,
+consumed a good many days, because each time we decided on a different
+location. One of our favorite recreations was shifting the house we meant
+to build about from place to place. We put imaginary wheels under that
+imaginary home of ours and kept it traveling all over the farm. The
+trouble with us was we had too much latitude. With half an acre of land at
+our disposal, we should have been circumscribed by boundary lines. On half
+an acre you have to be reasonably definite about where you are going to
+build; slide too far one way or the other, and you are committing
+trespass, and litigation ensues. But we had sixty acres from which to pick
+and to choose—sixty acres, with desirable sites scattered all over
+the tract.
+</p>
+<p>
+No sooner had we absolutely and positively settled on one spot as the spot
+where the house must stand than we would find half a dozen others equally
+desirable, or even more so; and then, figuratively speaking, we would pick
+up the establishment and transport it to one of the newly discovered
+spots, and wheel it round to face in a different direction from the
+direction in which it had just been facing. If a thing that does not yet
+physically exist may have sensations, the poor dizzy thing must have felt
+as if it were a merry-go-round.
+</p>
+<p>
+Likewise we were very busy putting in our road. Up until a short time ago
+Miss Anna Peck, who makes a specialty of scaling supposedly inaccessible
+crags, was probably the only living person who could have derived any
+pleasure from penetrating to our mountain fastness, either afoot or
+otherwise. When we heard an engine in difficulties coughing down under the
+hill, followed by the sound of a tire blowing out, or by the smell of
+rubber scorching as the brakes clamped into the fabric, we knew some of
+our friends had been reckless enough to undertake to climb up by motor.
+So, unless we wanted to become hermits, we felt it incumbent upon us to
+put in a road.
+</p>
+<p>
+When we got the estimates on the job we decided that the contractor must
+have figured on building our road of chalcedony or onyx or moss agate or
+some other of the semi-precious stones. It didn't seem possible that he
+meant to use any native material—at that price. It turned out,
+though, that his bid was fairly moderate—as processed blue-stone
+roads go in this climate; and ours has cost us only about eight times as
+much as I had previously supposed a replica of the Appian Way would cost.
+However, it has been pronounced a very good road by critics who should
+know; not a fancy road, but a fair average one.
+</p>
+<p>
+It would look smarter, of course, with wide brick gutters down either side
+of it for its entire length; and I should add brick gutters, too, if I
+were as comfortably fixed, say, as Mr. Charles Schwab, and felt sure that
+I could get some of the Vanderbilt boys to help me out in case I ran short
+of funds before the job was completed. Still, for persons who live simply
+it does very well.
+</p>
+<p>
+With all these absorbing employments to engage us, we naturally were loath
+to turn our attentions to water. We had lived too long in a flat where,
+when you wanted water, you merely turned a faucet. To us water had always
+been a matter of course. But now the situation was different. With each
+succeeding day the flow from our spring was slackening. In its present
+puniness it was no more than a reminder of the brave stream of the
+springtime.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a water witch, so called, in the neighborhood—a gentleman
+water witch. We were recommended to avail ourselves of his services. It
+was his custom, we were told, to arm himself with a forked peach-tree
+switch and walk about over the land, holding the wand in front of him by
+its two prongs, meantime muttering strange incantations. When he came to a
+spot where water lay close to the surface the other end of his divining
+rod would dip magically toward the earth. You dug there, and if you struck
+water the magician took the credit for it; and if you didn't strike water
+it was a sign the peach-tree switch had wilfully deceived its proprietor,
+and he cut a fresh twig off another and more dependable tree and gave you
+a second demonstration at half rates. However, before opening negotiations
+with this person, I bethought me to interview the man who had contracted
+to do the boring.
+</p>
+<p>
+The latter gentleman proved to be the most noncommittal man I ever met in
+my life. He was as chary about making predictions as to the result of
+operations in his line as the ticket agent of a jerkwater railroad down
+South is about estimating the probable time of arrival of the next
+passenger train—always conceding that there is to be any next train;
+and that is as chary as any human being can possibly be. Only upon one
+thing was he positive, which was that no peach-tree switch in the world
+could be educated up to the point where it could find water that was
+hidden underground.
+</p>
+<p>
+Man and boy, he had been boring wells for thirty years, he said; and it
+was all guess. One shaft would be put down—at three dollars a foot—until
+it pierced the roof of Tophet, and the only resultant moisture would be
+night sweats for the unhappy party who was footing the bills. Or the same
+prospector might dig his estate so full of circular holes that it would
+resemble honeycomb tripe, and never get anything except monthly statements
+for the work to date. On the other hand, a luckier man, living right
+across the way, had been known to start sinking a shaft, and before the
+drill had gone twenty feet it became necessary to remove the women and
+children to a place of safety until the geyser had been throttled down.
+</p>
+<p>
+This particular well digger's business, as he himself explained, was
+digging wells, not filling them after they were dug. He guaranteed to make
+a hole in the ground of suitable caliber for an artesian well, but Nature
+and Providence must do the rest. With this understanding, he fetched up
+his outfit and greased himself and the machinery all over, and announced
+that he was ready to start.
+</p>
+<p>
+So we picked out a spot where it would be convenient to build a pump house
+afterward, and he fixed up the engine and began grinding away. And he
+ground and ground and ground. Every morning, whistling a cheerful air, he
+would set his drills in circular motion, and all day he would keep it
+turning and turning. At eventide I would call on him and he would report
+progress—he had advanced so many feet or so many yards in a
+southerly direction and had encountered such and such a formation.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Any water?” At first I would put up the question hopefully, then
+nervously, and finally for the sake of regularity merely.
+</p>
+<p>
+“No water,” he would reply blithely; “but this afternoon about three
+o'clock I hit a stratum of the prettiest white quartz you ever saw in your
+life.” And, with the passion of the born geologist gleaming in his eye, he
+would pick up a handful of shining specimens and hold them out for me to
+admire; but I am afraid that toward the last any enthusiasm displayed by
+me was more or less forced.
+</p>
+<p>
+And the next night it would be red sandstone, or gray mica, or sky-blue
+schist, or mottled granite, or pink iron ore—or something! This
+abandoned farm of ours certainly proved herself to be a mighty variegated
+mineral prospect. In the course of four weeks that six-inch hole brought
+forth silver and solder, soda and sulphur, borax and soapstone, crystal
+and gravel, amalgam fillings and a very fair grade of moth balls.
+</p>
+<p>
+It brought forth nearly everything that may be found beneath the surface
+of the earth, I think, except radium—and water. On second thought, I
+am not so sure about the radium. It occurs to me that we did strike a
+trace of something resembling radium at the two-hundred-foot level—I
+won't be positive. But I am absolutely sure about the water. There wasn't
+any.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the end of a long and expensive month we abandoned that hole, fruitful
+though it was in mineral wealth, moved the machinery a hundred yards west,
+and began all over again. We didn't get any water here, either; but before
+we quit we ran into a layer of wonderful white marble. If anybody ever
+discovers a way of getting marble for monuments and statuary out of a hole
+six inches in diameter and a hundred and seventy-five feet deep our
+fortunes are made. We have the hole and the marble at the bottom of it;
+all he will have to provide is the machinery.
+</p>
+<p>
+By now we were desperate, but determined. We sent word to George Creel to
+rush us application blanks for membership in his Despair Association. We
+transferred the digging apparatus to a point away down in the valley, and
+the contractor retuned his engine and inserted a new steel drill—his
+other one had been worn completely out—and we began boring a third
+time. And three weeks later—oh, frabjous joy!—we struck water—plenteous
+oodles of it; cold, clear and pure. And then we broke ground for our new
+house.
+</p>
+<p>
+That isn't all—by no means is it all. Free from blight, our potatoes
+are in the bin; our apples have been picked; and our corn has been
+gathered, and in a rich golden store, it fills our new corncrib. We are
+eating our own chickens and our own eggs; we are drinking milk from our
+own cow; and we are living on vegetables of our own raising.
+</p>
+<p>
+Until now I never cared deeply for turnips. Turnips, whether yellow or
+white, meant little in my life. But now I know that was because they were
+strange turnips, not turnips which had grown in our own soil and for which
+I could have almost a paternal affection. Last night for dinner I ate a
+derby hatful of mashed turnips, size seven and an eighth.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let the servants quit now if they will—and do. Only the day before
+yesterday the laundress walked out on us. It was our new laundress, who
+had succeeded the old laundress, the one who stayed with us for nearly two
+consecutive weeks before the country life palled upon her sensitive
+spirit. And the day before that we lost a perfect treasure of a housemaid.
+She disliked something that was said by some one occupying the
+comparatively unimportant position of a member of the family, and she took
+umbrage and some silverware and departed from our fireside. We've had our
+troubles with cooks, too.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the latest one showed signs of a gnawing discontent I offered to take
+lessons on the ukulele and play for her in the long winter evenings that
+are now upon us. I suggested that we think up charades and acrostics—I
+am very fertile at acrostics—and have anagram parties now and then
+to while away the laggard hours. But no; she felt the call of the city and
+she must go. We are expecting a fresh candidate to-morrow. We shall try to
+make her stay with us, however brief, a pleasant one.
+</p>
+<p>
+But these domestic upsets are to us as nothing at all; for we have struck
+water, and we are living, in part at least, on our own home-grown
+provender, and shortly we shall start the home of our dreams. And to-day
+something else happened that filled our cup of joy to overflowing. In the
+middle of the day a dainty little doe came mincing down through our garden
+just as confidently as though she owned the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+We are less than an hour by rail from the Grand Central Station; and yet,
+as I write this line, a lordly cock grouse is strutting proud and unafraid
+through the undergrowth not fifty yards from my workroom! Last night, when
+I opened my bedroom window—in the garage—to watch the distant
+reflection of the New York lights, flickering against the sky to the
+southward, I heard a dog fox yelping in the woods!
+</p>
+<p>
+Let Old Major Gloom, the human Dismal Swamp, come over now as often as
+pleases him. Our chalice is proof against his poison.
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VI. TWO MORE YEARS ELAPSE
+</h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>s the reader will have no trouble in recalling, we broke ground for our
+house. That, however, was after we had altered the design so often that
+the first lot of plans and specifications got vertigo and had to be
+retired in favor of a new set. For one thing, we snatched one entire floor
+out of the original design—just naturally jerked it out from under
+and cast it away and never missed it either. And likewise this was after
+we had shifted the site of the house from one spot to another spot and
+thence to a third likely spot, and finally back again to the first spot.
+This, however, had one thing in its favor at least. It enabled us to do
+our moving without taking our household goods from storage, and yet during
+the same period to enjoy all the pleasurable thrill of shifting about from
+place to place. I find moving in your mind is a much less expensive way
+than the other way is and gives almost as much pleasure to a woman, who—being
+a woman—is naturally a mover at heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+Finally, though, all this preliminary skirmishing came to an end and we
+actually started work on our house. I should say, we started work on what
+formerly we had thought was going to be our house. It turned out we were
+wrong. As it stands to-day, two years after the beginning, in a state
+approaching completion, it is a very satisfactory sort of house we think,
+artistically as well as from the standpoint of being practical and
+comfortable; but it is no longer entirely our house. The architect is
+responsible for the general scheme of things, for the layout and the
+assembling of the wood and the brick and the cement and the stonework and
+all that sort of thing, and to him largely will attach the credit if the
+effect within and without should prove pleasing to the eye. Likewise, here
+and there are to be found the traces of ideas which we ourselves had, but
+I must confess the structure is also a symposium of the modified ideas of
+our friends and well-wishers mated to our ideas.
+</p>
+<p>
+To me human nature presents a subject for constant study. For a thing so
+widely distributed as it is, I regard it as one of the most interesting
+things there are anywhere. It seems to me one of the chief peculiarities
+of human nature is that it divides all civilized mankind into two special
+groups—those who think they could run any newspaper better than the
+man who is trying to run it, and those who think they could run any hotel
+better than the man who is hanging on as manager or proprietor of it.
+There are subdivisional classifications of course—for example, women
+who think they can tell any other woman how to bring up her children
+without spoiling them to death, and women who are absolutely sure no woman
+on earth can tell them anything about the right way to bring up their own
+children; which two groupings include practically all women. And I have
+yet to meet the man who did not believe that he was a good judge of either
+horses, diamonds, wines, women, salad dressings, antique furniture,
+Oriental rugs or the value of real estate. And finally all of these,
+regardless of sex and regardless, too, of previous experience in the line,
+know better how a house intended for living purposes should be designed
+and arranged than the individuals who are paying the bills and who expect
+to tenant the house as a home when it is done. By the same token—or
+by the inverse ratio of the same token—the persons who are building
+the house invariably begin to have doubts and misgivings regarding the
+worth of their own pet notions in regard to the said house the moment some
+outsider offers a counter argument. I do not know why this last should be
+so, but it is. It merely is one of the inexplicable phases of the common
+phenomenon called human nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+In our own case the force of this fact applied with a pronounced emphasis.
+When the tentative draft of the house of our dreams was offered for our
+inspection it seemed to us a gem—perfect, precious and rare. Filled
+with pride as we were, we showed the drawings to every one who came to see
+us. Getting out the drawings when somebody called became a regular habit
+with us. Being ourselves so deeply interested in them, we couldn't
+understand why our friends shouldn't be interested too. And they were—I'll
+say that much for them; they were all interested. And why not? For one
+thing, it gave them a chance to show how right they were regarding the
+designing of a house; not our house particularly, but anything under a
+roof, ranging from St. Peter's at Rome to the façade of the government
+fish hatchery in Tupelo, Mississippi. For another thing, it gave them a
+chance to show us how completely wrong we were on this subject. Not a
+single soul among them but pounced at the opportunity. Until then I never
+realized how many born pouncers—not amateur pouncers but
+professional expert master pouncers—I numbered in my acquaintance.
+Right from the beginning the procedure followed a certain ritual. A caller
+or pouncer would drop in and have off his things and get comfortably
+settled. We would produce the sketches, fondling them lovingly, and spread
+them out and invite the attention of our guest to probably the only
+perfect design of a house fashioned by the mind of man since the days of
+the mound builders on this hemisphere. In our language we may not have
+gone quite so far as to say all this, but our manner indicated that such
+was the case.
+</p>
+<p>
+He—for convenience in the illustration I shall make him a man,
+though in the case of a woman the outcome remained the same—he would
+consider the matchless work of inventive art presented for his
+consideration and then he would say; “An awfully nice notion—splendid,
+perfectly splendid! And still, you know, if I were——”
+ </p>
+<p>
+And so on.
+</p>
+<p>
+Or perhaps it would be: “Oh, I like the general idea immensely! But—you'll
+pardon my making a little suggestion, won't you?—but if I were
+tackling this proposition—” And so on.
+</p>
+<p>
+It has been my observation that all complimentary remarks uttered by a
+member of the human race in connection with a house which somebody else
+contemplates building end in “but.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+You just simply can't get away from it.
+</p>
+<p>
+From the treasure-troves of my memory I continue to quote:
+</p>
+<p>
+“But if I were tackling this proposition I would certainly not put the
+dining room here were you've got it. I'd switch it over there right next
+to the living room and give a vista through. See, like this!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+And out would come his lead pencil.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But that would mean eliminating the main hall,” one of us would venture.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Of course it would,” Brother Pounce would say. “Next to giving a vista
+through, cutting out the hall is the principal idea I had in mind. What do
+you want with a hall here? For that matter, what do you want with a hall
+any place that you can get along without it? Why, my dear people, don't
+you know that hallways are no earthly good except to catch dust and be
+drafty and make extra work for servants? And besides, in modern houses
+people are cutting the hallways down to a minimum—to an absolute
+minimum.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+We gathered that in a modern house—and, of course, a modern house
+was what we devoutly craved to own—persons going from one part of it
+to another didn't pass through a hall any more; they passed through a
+minimum. The idea seemed rather revolutionary to persons reared—as
+we had been—in houses with halls in them. Still, this person spoke
+as one having authority and we would listen with due respect to his words
+as he went on:
+</p>
+<p>
+“All right, then, we'll consider the hallway as chopped out. By chopping
+it out that gives us a chance to put the dining room here in this place
+and give a vista through into the living room. Here, I'll show you exactly
+what I mean—what did I do with my lead pencil? Because no matter
+what else you do or do not have, you must have a vista through.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+Before he had finished with this alteration and taken up with the next one
+we were made to understand that a house without a vista through was
+substantially the same as no house at all. Ashamed that we had been guilty
+of so gross an oversight, I would make a note, “Vista through,” on a
+scratch pad which I kept for that very purpose. Under the spell of his
+eloquence and compelling personality, I had already decided that first we
+would build a vista through, and then after that if any money was left we
+would sort of flank the vista through with bedrooms and a kitchen and
+other things of a comparatively incidental nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+Having scored this important point, the king of the pouncers—now
+warming to his work and with his eyes feverishly lit by the enthusiasm of
+the zealot—would proceed to claw the quivering giblets out of
+another section of our plan. Hark to him: “And say, see here now, how
+about your sun parlor? I can see two—no, three places suitable for
+tacking on a sun parlor merely by moving some walls round and putting the
+main entrance at the east front instead of the south front—funny the
+architect didn't think of that! He should have thought of that the very
+first thing if he calls himself a regular architect—and I suppose he
+does. What's the idea, leaving off the sun parlor?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+Then weakly, with an inner sinking of the heart, we would confess that we
+had not calculated on including any sun parlors in the general scope and
+he for his part would proceed to show us how deadly an omission, how
+grievous an offense this would be.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is a curious psychological paradox that we dreaded these suggestions
+and yet welcomed them, too. That is to say, we would begin by dreading
+them—resenting them would perhaps be a better term—and
+invariably would wind up by welcoming them. Nevertheless, there were times
+when I gave my celebrated imitation of the turning worm. Jarred off my
+mental balance by a proposed change which seemed entirely contrary to the
+trend of the style of house we had in mind for our house, I would offer at
+the outset a faint counter argument in defense, especially if a notion
+which was about to be offered as a sacrifice on the altar of friendly
+counsel had been a favorite little idea of my own—one that I had
+found in my own head, as the saying went in the Army. Though knowing in
+advance that I was fighting a losing fight, I would raise a meek small
+voice in protest. Never once did my protesting avail. There was one stock
+answer which my fellow controversialist always had handy—ready to
+belt me with.
+</p>
+<p>
+“One moment!” he would say, smiling the superior half-pitying smile which
+was really responsible for Cain's killing Abel that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Abel smiled just exactly in that way and so Cain killed him, and if you're
+asking me, he got exactly what was coming to him. “One moment!” he would
+say. “You've never built a house before, have you?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“No,” I would confess, “but—but—”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Then, pardon me, but I have! What I am trying to do is to keep you from
+making the mistakes I made. Almost anybody will make mistakes building his
+first house. I only wish I'd had somebody round to advise me as I'm
+advising you before I O. K.'d the plans and signed the contract. As it
+was, it cost me four thousand dollars to pull out two walls so that we
+could have a sun parlor. If you go ahead and build your house without
+having a sun parlor you'll never regret it but once—and that'll be
+all the time you live in it. Look here now, while I show you how easily
+you can do it.” And so on and so forth until we would capitulate and I'd
+write “Memo—sun parlor, sure,” on my little pad.
+</p>
+<p>
+Take for example the matter of sleeping porches.
+</p>
+<p>
+Personally I have never been drawn greatly to the idea of sleeping
+outdoors. I used to think an outdoor bedroom must be almost as
+inconvenient as an outdoor bathroom, and with me bathing has always been a
+solitary pleasure. I have felt that I would not be at my best while
+bathing before an audience. That may denote selfishness on my part, but
+such is my nature and I cannot change it. I suppose this prejudice against
+bathing before a crowd is constitutional with me—hereditary, as it
+were. All my folks were awfully peculiar that way.
+</p>
+<p>
+When they felt that they needed bathing they also felt that they needed
+privacy. I sometimes think that my family must have been descended from
+Susanna. She was a Biblical lady and so did not have any last name, but
+you probably recall her from the circumstance of her having been surprised
+while bathing by two snoopy elders. Whenever one of the Old Masters ran
+out of other subjects to paint, he would paint a picture of Susanna and
+the elders. In no two of their pictures did she look alike, but in all of
+them that I've ever seen she looked embarrassed. Yes, I dare say Susanna
+was our direct ancestress. Like practically all Southern families, ours is
+a very old family and I've always been led to believe that we go back a
+long way. True, I've never heard the Old Testament mentioned in this
+connection, but in view of the fact of our family being such an old or
+Southern family I reckon it is but fair to presume that we go back fully
+that far if not farther.
+</p>
+<p>
+Indeed I have been told that in my infancy a friend of the family, a man
+who had delved rather into archeology, on calling one day remarked that I
+had a head shaped exactly like a cuneiform Chaldean brick. It was years
+later, however, before my parents learned what a cuneiform Chaldean brick
+looked like and by that time the person who had paid me the compliment was
+dead and it was too late to take offense at him. And anyhow, in the
+meantime the contour of my skull had so altered that it was now possible
+for me to wear a regular child's hat bought out of a store. I point out
+the circumstance merely as possible collateral evidence showing
+semiprehistoric hereditary influences to corroborate the more or less
+direct evidence that as a family we antedate nearly all—if not all—of
+these Northern families by going back into the very dawn of civilization.
+I have a great aunt who rather specializes in genealogies and especially
+our own genealogy and the next time I see her I mean to ask her to consult
+the authorities and find out whether there is a strain of the Susanna
+blood in our stock. If she confirms my present belief that there is I
+shall be very glad to let everybody know about it in an appendix to the
+next edition of this work.
+</p>
+<p>
+As with taking a bath outdoors, so with sleeping outdoors; this always was
+my profound conviction. I had a number of arguments, all good arguments I
+thought, to offer in support of my position. To begin with, I am what
+might be called a sincere sleeper, a whole-souled sleeper. I have been
+told that when I am sleeping and the windows are open everybody in the
+vicinity knows I am actually sleeping and not lying there tossing about
+restlessly upon my bed. I would not go so far as to say that I snore, but
+like most deep thinkers I breathe heavily when asleep. On board a sleeping
+car I have been known to breathe even more heavily than the locomotive
+did. I know of this only by hearsay, but when twenty or thirty passengers,
+all strangers to you, unite in a common statement to the same effect you
+are bound to admit, if you have any sense of fairness in your make-up,
+that there must be an element of truth in what they allege.
+</p>
+<p>
+Very well, then, let us concede that I sleep with the muffler cut out
+open. In view of this fact I have felt that I would not care to sleep in
+the open where my style of sleeping might invite adverse comment. In such
+a matter I try to have a proper consideration for the feelings of others.
+Indeed I carried it to such a point that when we lived in the closely
+congested city, with neighboring flat dwellers just across a narrow
+courtyard, I placed the head of my bed in such a position that I might do
+the bulk of my breathing up the chimney.
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides—so I was wont to argue—what in thunder was the good of
+having a comfortable cozy bedroom with steam heat and everything in it,
+and a night lamp for reading if one felt like reading, and a short cut
+down to the pantry if one felt hungry in the small hours, and then on a
+cold night deliberately to crawl out on a wind-swept porch hung against
+the outer wall of the house and sleep there? I once knew one of these
+sleeping-porch fiends who was given to boasting that in wintertime he
+often woke to find the snow had drifted in on the top of him while he
+slept. He professed to like the sensation; he bragged about it. From his
+remarks you gleaned that his idea of a really attractive boudoir was the
+polar bear's section up at the Bronx Zoo. I was sorry his name had not
+been Moe instead of Joe—which was what it was—because if it
+had only been the former I had thought up a clever play on words. I was
+going to catch him in company and trap him into boasting about loving to
+sleep in a snowdrift and then I was going to call him Eskimo, which should
+have been good for a laugh every time it was spontaneously sprung on a
+fresh audience.
+</p>
+<p>
+In short, taking one thing with another, I have never favored sleeping
+porches. But after listening to friends who either had them or who were so
+sorry they didn't have them that they were determined we should have a
+full set of them on our house, we concurred in the consensus of opinion
+and decided to cast aside old prejudices and to have them at all hazards.
+I believe in the rule of the majority—of course with a few private
+reservations from time to time, as for instance, when the majority gets
+carried away by this bone-dry notion.
+</p>
+<p>
+I recall in particular one friend who was especially emphatic and
+especially convincing in the details of offering suggestions and advice,
+and—where he deemed such painful measures necessary—in
+administering reproof for and correction of our faulty misconceptions of
+what a house should be. But then he was a Bostonian by birth and a Harvard
+graduate and had the manner—shall we call it the slightly superior
+manner?—which so often marks one who may boast these two
+qualifications. When you meet a well-bred native Bostonian who has been
+through Harvard it is as though you had met an egg which had enjoyed the
+unique distinction of having been laid twice and both times successfully.
+Our friend was distinctly that way. When he had rendered judgment there
+was no human appeal. It never occurred to us there could be any appeal.
+</p>
+<p>
+So we incorporated sleeping porches and vistas through and sun parlors and
+a hundred other things—more or less—into the plan. Obeying the
+wills of stronger natures than ours, we figuratively knocked out walls and
+then on subsequent and what appeared to be superior counsel figuratively
+stuck them back in again. We lifted the roof for air and we lowered it for
+style. We tiled the floors and then untiled them and put down beautiful
+mental hardwood all over the place. We rejected paneled wainscotings in
+favor of rough-cast plaster and then abolished the plaster for something
+in the nature of a smooth finish for our walls. By direction we tacked on
+an ell here and an annex there. If we had kept all the additions which at
+one period or another we were quite sure we must keep in order to make our
+home complete we should have had a house entirely unsuitable for persons
+of our position in life to reside in, but could have made considerable
+sums of money by renting it out for national conventions.
+</p>
+<p>
+On one point and only one point did we remain adamant. Otherwise we were
+as clay in the hands of the potter, as flax to the loom of the weaver; but
+there we were as adamant as an ant. We concurred in the firm and
+unswervable decision that—no matter what else we might have or might
+not have in our house—we would not have a den in it. By den I mean
+one of those cubby-holes opening off a living room or an entrance hall
+that is fitted up with woolly hangings and an Oriental smoking set where
+people are supposed to go and sit when they wish to be comfortable—only
+nobody in his right mind ever does. In my day I have done too much
+traveling on the Pullman of commerce to crave to have a section of one in
+my home. Call them dens if you will; I know a sleeping-car compartment
+when I see it, even though it be thinly disguised by a pair of
+trading-stamp scimitars crossed over the door and a running yard of
+mailorder steins up on a shelf. Several earnest advocates of the den
+theory tried their persuasive powers on us, but each time one or the other
+of us turned a deaf ear. When her deaf ear was tired from turning I would
+turn mine a while, and vice versa. There is no den in our home. Except
+over my dead body there never shall be one.
+</p>
+<p>
+While on this general subject I may add that if anybody succeeds in
+sticking a Japanese catalpa on our lawn it will also be necessary to
+remove my lifeless but still mutely protesting remains before going ahead
+with the planting. I have accepted the new state income tax in the spirit
+in which it seems to be meant—namely, to confiscate any odd
+farthings that may still be knocking round the place after the Federal
+income tax has been paid, and a very sound notion, too. What is money for
+if it isn't for legislators to spend? Should the Prohibitionists put
+through the seizure-and-search law as a national measure I suppose in time
+I may get accustomed to waking up and finding a zealous gent with a badge
+and one of those long prehensile noses especially adapted for poking into
+other people's businesses, such as so many professional uplifters have,
+prowling through the place on the lookout for a small private bottle
+labeled “Spirits Aromatic Ammonia, Aged in the Wood.” With the passage of
+time I may become really enthusiastic over the prospect of having my
+baggage ransacked for contraband essences every time I cross the state
+line. My taste in pyjamas has been favorably commented on and there is no
+reason why my fellow travelers should not enjoy a treat as the inspector
+dumps the contents of the top tray out on the car floor. The main thing is
+to get used to whatever it is that we have got to get used to.
+</p>
+<p>
+But I have a profound conviction that in the matter of a Japanese catalpa
+on the lawn, just as in the matter of a den opening off the living room
+and taking up the space which otherwise would make a first-rate
+umbrella-and-galosh closet, I could never hope to get used. Nor do I yearn
+for a weeping mulberry tree about the premises. I dislike its prevalent
+shape and the sobbing sound it makes when especially moved by the distress
+which chronically afflicts the sensitive thing. Nature endowed our
+abandoned farm with a plenteous selection of certain deciduous growths
+common to the temperate zone—elms and maples and black walnuts and
+hickories and beeches and birches and dogwoods and locusts; also pines and
+hemlocks and cedars and spruces. What the good Lord designed as suitable
+arboreal adornment for the eastern seaboard is good enough for me. I have
+no desire to clutter up the small section of North America to which I hold
+the title deeds with trees which do not match in with the rest of North
+America. I should as soon think of putting a pagoda on top of Pike's Peak
+or connecting the Thousand Islands with a system of pergolas.
+</p>
+<p>
+Having got that out of my system, let us get off the grounds and back to
+the house proper. As I was remarking just before being diverted from the
+main line, a den was about the only voluntary offering which we positively
+refused to take over. Every other notion of whatsoever nature was duly
+adopted and duly carried on to the architect He was a wonderful man. All
+architects, I am convinced, must be wonderful men, but him I would call
+one of the pick of his breed. How he managed to make practical use of some
+of the ideas we brought to him and fit them into the plan; how without
+hurting our feelings or the feelings of our friends he succeeded in curing
+us of sundry delusions we had acquired; how he succeeded in confining the
+ground plan to a scale which would not make the New York Public Library
+seem in comparison a puny and inconsequential edifice; and how taking a
+number of the suggestions which came to him and rejecting the others he
+yet preserved the structural balance and the suitable proportions which he
+had had in his mind all along—these, to my way of thinking,
+approximate the Eighth Wonder. No, it is the first wonder; the remaining
+seven finish place, show and also ran.
+</p>
+<p>
+After a season of debate, compromise and conciliation, when the gray in
+his hair had perceptibly thickened and the lines in his face had deepened,
+though still he wore his chronic patient smile which makes strangers like
+him, the final specifications were blue-printed and the work was started.
+A lady to whom I have the honor of being very closely related by marriage
+removed the first shovel load of loam from the contemplated excavation.
+She is not what you would call a fancy shoveler and the net result of her
+labor, I should say offhand, was about a heaping dessert-spoonful of
+topsoil. Had I guessed what that inconsequential pinch of earth would
+subsequently mean to us in joy I should have put it in a snuffbox and
+carried it about with me as the first tangible souvenir of a great
+accomplishment and a reminder to me never again to look slightingly upon
+small things. Bulk does not necessarily imply ultimate achievement. If Tom
+Thumb had been two feet taller and eighteen inches broader than he was I
+doubt whether he would amounted to much as a dwarf.
+</p>
+<p>
+Well, we reared the foundations and then one fine April morning our
+country abandoned its policy of watchful waiting for one of swatful
+hating. While we were at war it did not seem patriotic to try to go ahead.
+There was another reason—a variety of reasons rather. Very soon
+labor was not to be had, or materials either. Take the detail of concrete.
+Now that the last war is over and the next war not as yet started, I
+violate no confidence and betray no trust in stating that one of our chief
+military secrets had to do with this seemingly harmless product. We were
+shooting concrete at the Germans. In large quantities it was fatal; in
+small, mussy. And while the Germans were digging the gummy stuff out of
+their eyes and their hair our fellows would swarm over the top and capture
+them. And if you are not sure that I am telling the exact truth regarding
+this I only wish you had tried during active hostilities—as I did—to
+buy a few jorums and noggins of concrete. Trying would have made a true
+believer of you, too. And the same might be said for steel girders and cow
+hair to put into plaster so it will stick, and ten-penny nails. We were
+firing all these things at the enemy. It must have disconcerted him
+terribly to be expecting high explosives and have a keg of ten-penny nails
+or a bale of cow hair burst in his midst. Without desire to detract from
+the glory of the other branches of the service, I am of the opinion that
+it was ten-penny nails that won the war. And in bringing about this
+splendid result I did my share by not buying any in large amount for going
+on eighteen months.
+</p>
+<p>
+I couldn't.
+</p>
+<p>
+War having come and concrete having gone, the contractor on our little job
+knocked off operations until such time as Germany had been cured of what
+principally ailed her. Even through the delay, though, we found pleasure
+in our project. We would perch perilously upon the top of the jagged walls
+and enjoy the view the while we imagined we sat in our finished dream
+house. We could see it, even if no one else could. In rainy weather we
+brought umbrellas along. The fact that a passerby beheld us thus on a
+showery afternoon I suppose was responsible for the report which spread
+through the vicinity that a couple of lunatics were roosting on some stone
+ruins halfway up the side of Mott's Mountain. We didn't mind though. The
+great creators of this world have ever been the victims of popular
+misunderstanding. Sir Isaak Walton, sitting under an apple tree and
+through the falling of an apple discovering the circulation of the blood,
+is to us a splendid figure of genius; but I have no doubt the neighbors
+said at the time that he would have been much better employed helping Mrs.
+W. with the housework. And probably there was a lot of loose and scornful
+talk when Benjamin Franklin went out in a thunderstorm with a kite and a
+brass key and fussed round among the darting lightning bolts until he was
+as wet as a rag and then came home and tried to dry his sopping feet
+before one of those old-fashioned open fireplaces so common in that
+period. But what was the result?
+</p>
+<p>
+The Franklin heater—that's what. With such historic examples behind
+us, what cared we though the tongue of slander wagged while we inhabited
+our site with the leaky heavens for a roof to our parlor and the far
+horizons for its wall. Not to every one is vouchsafed the double boon of
+spending long happy days in one's home and at the same time keeping out in
+the open air.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the day the United Press scooped the opposition by announcing the
+cessation of hostilities some days before the hostilities really cessated,
+thereby scoring one of the greatest journalistic beats since the
+Millerites prognosticated the end of the world, giving day, date and hour
+somewhat prematurely in advance of that interesting event, which as a
+matter of fact has not taken place yet—on that memorable day the
+country at large celebrated the advent of peace. We also celebrated the
+peace, but on a personal account we celebrated something else besides. We
+celebrated the prospect of an early resumption of work in the construction
+of our house.
+</p>
+<p>
+During the months that followed I learned a lot about the intricacies and
+the mysteries of house building. Beforehand, in my ignorance I figured
+that the preliminary plans might be stretched out or contracted in to suit
+the shifting mood of the designer and the sudden whim of his client, but
+that once the walls went up and the beams went across and the rafters came
+down both parties were thereafter bound by set metes and bounds. Not at
+all. I discovered that there is nothing more plastic than brickwork,
+nothing more elastic than a girder. A carpenter spends days of his time
+and dollars of your money fitting and joining a certain section of
+framework; that is to say, he engages in such craftsmanship when not
+sharpening his saw. It has been my observation that the average
+conscientious carpenter allows forty per cent of his eight-hour day to saw
+sharpening. It must be a joy to him to be able to give so much time daily
+to putting nice keen teeth in a saw, knowing that somebody else is paying
+him for it at the rate of ninety cents an hour. Watching him at work in
+intervals between saw filing, you get from him the impression that unless
+this particular angle of the wooden skeleton is articulated just so the
+whole structure will come tumbling down some day when least expected. At
+length he gets the job done to his satisfaction and goes elsewhere.
+</p>
+<p>
+Along comes a steamfitter and he, whistling merrily the while, takes a
+chisel or an adze or an ax and just bodaciously haggles a large ragged
+orifice in the carpenter's masterpiece. Through the hole he runs a Queen
+Rosamond's maze of iron pipes. He then departs and the carpenter is called
+back to the scene of the mutilation. After sharpening his saw some more in
+a restrained and contemplative manner, he patches up the wound as best he
+can. Enter, then, the boss plumber accompanied by a helper. The boss
+plumber finds a comfortable two-by-four to sit on and does sit thereon and
+lights up his pipe and while he smokes and directs operations the
+assistant or understudy, with edged tools provided for that purpose, tears
+away some of the cadaver's most important ribs and several joints of its
+spinal column for the forthcoming insertion of various concealed fixtures.
+</p>
+<p>
+Following the departure of these assassins the patient carpenter returns
+and to the best of his ability reduces all the compound fractures that he
+conveniently can get at, following which he sharpens his saw—not the
+big saw which he sharpened from eight-forty-five to ten-fifteen o'clock
+this morning, but the little buttonhole saw which he has not sharpened
+since yesterday afternoon; this done, he calls it a day and goes home to
+teach his little son Elmer, who expects to follow in the paternal
+footsteps, the rudiments of the art of filing a saw without being in too
+much of a hurry about it, which after all is the main point in this
+department of the carpentering profession.
+</p>
+<p>
+And the next day the plumber remembers where he left his sack of smoking
+tobacco, or the steam fitter's attention is directed to the fact that when
+he stuck in the big pipe like a bass tuba he forgot to insert alongside it
+the little pipe like a piccolo, and therefore it becomes necessary to
+maltreat the already thrice-mangled remains of woodwork. A month or so
+later the plasterers arrive—they were due in a week, but a plasterer
+who showed up when he was expected or any time within a month after he had
+solemnly promised on his sacred word of honor that he meant to show up
+would have his card taken away from him and be put out of the union. Hours
+after Gabriel has blown his trump for the last call it is going to be
+incumbent upon the little angel bell hops to go and page the plasterers,
+else they won't get there for judgment at all.
+</p>
+<p>
+Be that as it may and undoubtedly will be, in a month or so the plasterers
+arrive, wearing in streaks the same effects in laid-on complexion that so
+many of our leading débutantes are wearing all over their faces. The chief
+plasterer looks over the prospect and decides that in order to insure a
+smooth and unbroken surface for his plaster coat the plumbing and the
+heating connections must have their elbows tucked in a few notches, which
+ultimatum naturally requires the good offices of the carpenter, first to
+snatch out and afterward to hammer back into some sort of alignment the
+shreds and fragments of his original job. When this sort of thing, with
+variations, has gone on through a period of months, a house has become an
+intricate and complicated fabric of patchworks and mosaics held together,
+as nearly as a layman can figure, by the power of cohesion and the
+pressures of dead weights. The amazing part of it is that it stays put. I
+am quite sure that our house will stay put, because despite the vagaries—perhaps
+I should say the morbid curiosity—of various artificers intent on
+taking the poor thing apart every little while, it was constructed of
+materials which as humans compute mutabilities are reasonably permanent in
+their basic characters.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was our desire to have a new house that would look like an old house; a
+yearning in which the architect heartily concurred, he having a distaste
+for the slick, shiny, look-out-for-the-paint look which is common enough
+in American country houses. In this ambition a combination of
+circumstances served our ends. For the lower walls we looted two of the
+ancient stone fences which meandered aimlessly across the face of our
+acres. According to local tradition, those fences dated back to
+pre-Revolutionary days; they were bearded thick with lichens and their
+faces were scored and seamed. In laying them up we were fortunate enough
+to find and hire a stonemason who was part artificer but mostly real
+artist—an Italian, with the good taste in masonry which seems to be
+inherent in his countrymen; only in this case the good taste was developed
+to a very high degree. Literally he would fondle a stone whose color and
+contour appealed to him and his final dab with the trowel of mortar was in
+the nature of a caress.
+</p>
+<p>
+On top of this find came another and even luckier one. Three miles away
+was an abandoned brickyard. Once an extensive busy plant, it had lain idle
+for many years. Lately it had been sold and the new owners were now
+preparing to salvage the material it contained. Thanks to the forethought
+of the architect, we secured the pick of these pickings. From old pits we
+exhumed fine hard brick which had been stacked there for a generation,
+taking on those colors and that texture which only long exposure to wind
+and rain and sun can give to brick. These went into our upper walls. For a
+lower price than knotty, wavy, fresh-cut, half-green spruce would have
+cost us at a lumber yard, modern prices and lumber yards being what they
+are, we stripped from the old kiln sheds beautiful dear North Carolina
+boards, seasoned and staunch. These were for the rough flooring and the
+sheathing. The same treasure mine provided us with iron bars for
+reënforcing; with heavy beams and splendid thick wide rafters; with fire
+brick glazed over by clays and minerals which in a molten state had flowed
+down their surfaces; with girders and underpinnings of better grade and
+greater weight than any housebuilder of moderate means can afford these
+times. Finally, for roofing we procured old field slates of all colors and
+thicknesses and all sizes; and these by intent were laid on in irregular
+catch-as-catch-can fashion, suggestive when viewed at a little distance of
+the effect of thatching. Another Italian, a wood carver this time,
+craftily cut the scrolled beam ends which show beneath our friendly eaves
+and in the shadows of our gables. It was necessary only to darken with
+stains the newly gouged surfaces; the rest had been antiquated already by
+fifty years of Hudson River climate. Before the second beam was in place a
+wren was building her nest on the sloped top of the first one. We used to
+envy that wren—she had moved in before we had.
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VII. “AND SOLD TO——”
+ </h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen the house was up as far as the second floor and the first mortgage,
+talk rose touching on the furnishings. To me it seemed there would be
+ample time a decade or so thence to begin thinking of the furnishings. So
+far as I could tell there was no hurry and probably there never would be
+any hurry. For the job had reached that stage so dismally familiar to any
+one who ever started a house with intent to live in it when completed, if
+ever. I refer to the stage when a large and variegated assortment of hired
+help are ostensibly busy upon the premises and yet everything seems
+practically to be at a standstill. From the standpoint of a mere bystander
+whose only function is to pay the bills, it seems that the workmen are
+only coming to the job of a morning because they hate the idea of hanging
+round their own homes all day with nothing to do.
+</p>
+<p>
+So it was with us. Sawing and hammering and steam fitting and plumbing and
+stone-lying and brick-lying were presumed to be going on; laborers were
+wielding the languid pick; a roof layer was defying the laws of
+gravitation on our ridgepole; at stated intervals there were great gobs of
+payments on account of this or that to be met and still and yet and
+notwithstanding, to the lay eye the progress appeared infinitesimal. For
+the first time I could understand why Pharaoh or Rameses or whoever it was
+that built the Pyramids displayed peevishness toward the Children of
+Israel. Indeed I developed a cordial sympathy for him. He had my best
+wishes. They were four or five thousand years late, but even so he had 'em
+and welcome.
+</p>
+<p>
+Accordingly when the matter of investing in furnishings was broached I
+stoutly demurred. As I recall, I spoke substantially as follows:
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why all this mad haste? Rome wasn't built in a day, as I have often
+heard, and in view of my own recent experiences I am ready to make
+affidavit to the fact. I'll go further than that. I'll bet any sum within
+reason, up to a million dollars, that the meanest smokehouse in Rome was
+not built in a day. No Roman smokehouse—Ionic, Doric, Corinthian or
+Old Line Etruscan—is barred.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Unless workingmen have changed a whole lot since those times, it was not
+possible to begin to start to commence to get ready to go ahead to proceed
+to advance with that smokehouse or any other smokehouse in a day. And
+after they did get started they dallied along and dallied along and killed
+time until process curing came into fashion among the best families of
+Ancient Rome and smokehouses lost their vogue altogether. Let us not be
+too impetuous about the detail of furnishings. I have a feeling—a
+feeling based on my own observations over yonder at the site of our own
+little undertaking—that when that house is really done the only
+furnishings we'll require will be a couple of wheel chairs and something
+to warm up spoon victuals in.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Anyhow, what's wrong with the furnishings we already have in storage?
+Judging by the present rate of non-progress—of static advancement,
+if I may use such a phrase—long before we have a place to set them
+up in our furnishings will be so entirely out of style that they'll be
+back in style all over again, if you get me. These things move in cycles,
+you know. One generation buys furniture and uses it. The next generation
+finding it hopelessly old-fashioned and out of date burns it up or casts
+it away or gives it away or stores it in the attic—anything to get
+rid of it. The third generation spends vast sums of money trying to
+restore it or the likes of it, for by that time the stuff which was
+despised and discarded is in strong demand and fetching fancy prices.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The only mistake is to belong to the middle generation, which curiously
+enough is always the present one. We crave what our grandparents owned but
+our parents did not. Our grandchildren will crave what we had but our own
+children won't. They'll junk it. To-day's monstrosity is
+day-after-tomorrow's art treasure just as today's museum piece is
+day-before-yesterday's monstrosity. Therefore, I repeat, let us remain
+calm. I figure that when we actually get into that house our grandchildren
+will be of a proper age to appreciate the belongings now appertaining to
+us, and all will be well.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+Thus in substance I spoke. The counter argument offered was that—conceding
+what I said to be true—the fact remained and was not to be gainsaid
+that we did not have anywhere near enough of furnishings to equip the
+house we hoped at some distant date to occupy.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You must remember,” I was told, “that for the six or eight years before
+we decided to move out here to the country we lived in a flat.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“What of it?” I retorted instantly. “What of it?” I repeated, for when in
+the heat of controversy I think up an apt bit of repartee like that I am
+apt to utter it a second time for the sake of emphasis. Pausing only to
+see if my stroke of instantaneous retort had struck in, I continued:
+</p>
+<p>
+“That last flat we had swallowed up furniture as a rat hole swallows sand.
+First and last we must have poured enough stuff into that flat to furnish
+the state of Rhode Island. And what about the monthly statements we are
+getting now from the storage warehouse signed by the president of the
+company, old man Pl. Remit? Doesn't the size of them prove that in the
+furniture-owning line at least we are to be regarded as persons of
+considerable consequence?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Don't be absurd,” I was admonished. “Just compare the size of the largest
+bedroom in that last flat we had in One Hundred and Tenth Street with the
+size of the smallest bedroom we expect to have in the new place. Why, you
+could put the biggest bedroom we had there into the smallest bedroom we
+are going to have here and lose it! And then think of the halls we must
+furnish and the living room and the breakfast porch and everything. Did we
+have a breakfast porch in the flat? We did not! Did we have a living room
+forty feet one way and twenty-eight the other? We did not! Did we have a
+dining room in that flat that was big enough to swing a cat in?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“We didn't have any cat.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“All the same, we—”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“I doubt whether any of the neighbors would have loaned us a cat just for
+that purpose.” I felt I had the upper hand and I meant to keep it.
+“Besides, you know I don't like cats. What is the use of importing foreign
+matters such as cats—and purely problematical cats at that—into
+a discussion about something else? What relation does a cat bear to
+furniture, I ask you? Still, speaking of cats, I'm reminded—”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Never mind trying to be funny. And never mind trying to steer the
+conversation off the right track either. Please pay attention to what I am
+saying—let's see, where was I? Oh, yes: Did we have a hall in that
+flat worthy to be dignified by the name of a hall? We did not! We had a
+passageway—that's what it was—a passageway. Now there is a
+difference between furnishing a mere passageway and a regular hall, as you
+are about to discover before you are many months older.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+On second thought I had to concede there was something in what had just
+been said. One could not have swung one's cat in our dining room in the
+flat with any expectation of doing the cat any real good. And the hallway
+we had in our flat was like nearly all halls in New York flats. It was
+comfortably filled when you hung a water-color picture up on its wall and
+uncomfortably crowded if you put a clarionet in the corner. It would have
+been bad luck to open an umbrella anywhere in our flat—bad luck for
+the umbrella if for nothing else. Despite its enormous capacity for
+inhaling furniture it had been, when you came right down to cases, a
+form-fitting fiat. So mentally confessing myself worsted at this angle of
+the controversy, I fell back on my original argument that certainly it
+would be years and years and it might be forever before we possibly could
+expect—at the current rate of speed of the building operations, or
+speaking exactly, at the current rate of the lack of speed—to move
+in.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But the architect has promised us on his solemn word of honor—”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Don't tell me what the architect has promised!” I said bitterly. “Next to
+waiters, architects are the most optimistic creatures on earth. A waiter
+is always morally certain that twenty minutes is the extreme limit of time
+that will be required to cook anything. You think that you would like,
+say, to have a fish that is not listed on the bill of fare under the
+subheading 'Ready Dishes'—it may be a whale or it may be a minnow:
+that detail makes no difference to him—and you ask the waiter how
+about it, and he is absolutely certain that it will be possible to borrow
+a fishing pole somewhere and dig bait and send out and catch that fish and
+bring it back in and clean it and take the scales and the fins off and
+garnish it with sprigs of parsley and potatoes and lemon and make some
+drawn butter sauce to pour over it and bring it to you in twenty minutes.
+If he didn't think so he would not be a waiter. An architect is exactly
+like a waiter, except that he thinks in terms of days instead of terms of
+minutes. Don't tell me about architects! I only wish I were as sure of
+heaven as the average architect is regarding that which no mortal possibly
+can be sure of, labor conditions being what chronically they are.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+But conceded that the reader is but a humble husbandman—meaning by
+that a man who is married—he doubtless has already figured out the
+result of this debate. Himself, he knows how such debates usually do
+terminate. In the end I surrendered, and the final upshot was that we set
+about the task of furnishing the rooms that were to be. From that hour
+dated the beginning of my wider and fuller education into the system
+commonly in vogue these times in or near the larger cities along our
+Atlantic seaboard for the furnishing of homes. I have learned though. It
+has cost me a good deal of time and some money and my nervous system is
+not what it was, having suffered a series of abrupt shocks, but I have
+learned. I know something now—not much, but a little—about
+period furniture.
+</p>
+<p>
+A period, as you may recall, is equal to a full stop; in fact a period is
+a full stop. This is a rule in punctuation which applies in other
+departments of life, as I have discovered. Go in extensively for the
+period stuff in your interior equipments and presently you will be coming
+to a full stop in your funds on hand. The thing works out the same way
+every time. I care not how voluminously large and plethoric your cash
+balance may be, period furniture carried to an excess will convert it into
+a recent site and then the bank will be sending you one of those little
+printed notices politely intimating that “your account appears overdrawn.”
+ And any time a banker goes so far as to hint that your account appears
+overdrawn you may bet the last cent you haven't left that he is correct.
+He knows darned good and well it is overdrawn and this merely is his
+kindly way of softening the blow to you.
+</p>
+<p>
+I have a theory that when checks begin to roll in from the clearing house
+made out to this or that dealer in period furniture the paying teller
+hastens to the adjusting department to see how your deposits seem to be
+bearing up under the strain. It is as though he heard you were buying oil
+stocks or playing the races out of your savings and he might as well begin
+figuring now about how long approximately it will be before your account
+will become absolutely vacant in appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+As I was remarking, I know a trifle about period furniture. Offhand now, I
+can distinguish a piece which dates back to Battle Abbey from something
+which goes back no farther than Battle Creek. Before I could not do this.
+I was forever getting stuff of the time of the Grand Monarch confused with
+something right fresh out of Grand Rapids. Generally speaking, all
+antiques—whether handed down from antiquity or made on the premises—looked
+alike to me. But in the light of my painfully acquired knowledge I now can
+see the difference almost at a glance. Sometimes I may waver a trifle. I
+look at a piece of furniture which purports to be an authentic antique. It
+is decrepit and creaky and infirm; the upholstering is frayed and faded
+and stained; the legs are splayed and tottery; the seams gape and there
+are cracks in the paneling. If it is a chair, no plump person in his or
+her right mind would dare sit down in it. If it is a bedstead, any sizable
+adult undertaking to sleep in it would do so at his peril. So, outwardly
+and visibly it seems to bear the stamp of authenticity. Yet still I doubt.
+It may be a craftily devised counterfeit. It may be something of
+comparatively recent manufacture which has undergone careless handling. In
+such a case I seek for the wormholes—if any—the same as any
+other seasoned collector would.
+</p>
+<p>
+Up until comparatively recently wormholes, considered as such, had no
+great lure to me. If I thought of them at all I thought of them as a topic
+which was rather lacking in interest to begin with and one easily
+exhausted. If you had asked me about wormholes I—speaking offhand—probably
+would say that this was a matter which naturally might appeal to a worm
+but would probably hold forth no great attraction for a human being,
+unless he happened to be thinking of going fishing. But this was in my
+more ignorant, cruder days, before I took a beginner's easy course in the
+general science of wormholes. I am proud of my progress, but I would not
+go so far just yet as to say that I am a professional. Still I am out of
+the amateur class. I suppose you might call me a semi-pro, able under
+ordinary circumstances to do any given wormhole in par.
+</p>
+<p>
+For example, at present I have an average of three correct guesses out of
+five chances—which is a very high average for one who but a little
+while ago was the veriest novice at distinguishing between ancient
+wormholes, as made by a worm, and modern wormholing done by piece-work. I
+cannot explain to you just how I do this—it is a thing which after a
+while just seems to come to you. But of course you must have a natural
+gift for it to start with—an inherent affinity for wormholes, as it
+were.
+</p>
+<p>
+However, I will say that I did not thoroughly master the cardinal
+principles of this art until after I had studied under one of the leading
+wormhole experts in this country—a man who has devoted years of his
+life just to wormholes. True, like most great specialists he is a person
+of one idea. Get him off of wormholes and the conversation is apt to drag,
+but discussing his own topic he can go on for hours and hours. I really
+believe he gets more pleasure out of one first-class, sixteenth-century
+wormhole than the original worm did. And as Kipling would say: I learned
+about wormholes from him.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the outset I must confess I rather leaned toward a nice, neat,
+up-to-date wormhole as produced amid sanitary surroundings in an inspected
+factory out in Michigan, where no scab wormholes would be tolerated,
+rather than toward one which had been done by an unorganized foreign worm—possibly
+even a pauperized worm—two or three hundred years ago, when there
+was no such thing as a closed shop and no protection against germs.
+Whenever possible I believe in patronizing the products of union labor.
+But the expert speedily set me right on this point. He made me see that in
+furnishings and decorations nothing modern can possibly compare with
+something which is crumbly and tottery with the accumulated weight of the
+hoary years.
+</p>
+<p>
+He taught me about patina, too. Patina is a most fascinating subject, once
+you get thoroughly into it. Everybody who goes in for period furniture
+must get into it sooner or later, and the sooner the better, because if
+you are not able to recognize patina at a glance you are as good as lost
+when you undertake to appraise antique furniture. When a connoisseur lays
+hold upon a piece of furniture al-leged to have rightful claims to
+antiquity the first thing he does is to run his hand along the exposed
+surfaces to ascertain by the practiced touch of his fingers whether the
+patina is on the level or was applied by a crafty counterfeiter. After
+that he upends it to look for the wormholes. If both are orthodox he gives
+it his validation as the genuine article. If they are not he brands the
+article a spurious imitation and rejects it with ill-concealed scorn.
+There are other tests, but these two are the surest ones.
+</p>
+<p>
+For the benefit of those who may not have had any advantages as recently
+and expensively enjoyed I will state that patina is the gloss or film
+which certain sorts of metal and certain sorts of polished woods acquire
+through age, long usage and wear. With the passage of time fabrics also
+may acquire it. You may have noticed it in connection with a pair of black
+diagonal trousers that had seen long and severe wear or on the elbows of
+summer-before-last's blue serge coat. However, patina in pants or on the
+braided seams of a presiding elder's Sunday suit is not so highly valued
+as when it occurs in relation to a Jacobean church pew or a
+William-and-Mary what-not.
+</p>
+<p>
+When I look back on my untutored state before we began to patronize the
+antique shops and the auction shops I am ashamed—honestly I am. The
+only excuse I can offer is based on the grounds of my earlier training.
+Like so many of my fellow countrymen, born and reared as I was in the
+crude raw atmosphere of interior America—anyhow, almost any wealthy
+New Yorker will tell you it is a crude raw atmosphere and not in any way
+to be compared with the refined atmosphere which is about the only thing
+you can get for nothing in Europe—as I say, brought up as I was amid
+such raw surroundings and from the cradle made the unconscious victim of
+this environment, I had an idea that when a person craved furniture he
+went for it to a regular furniture store having ice boxes and porch
+hammocks and unparalleled bargains in golden oak dining-room sets in the
+show windows, and there he made his selection and gave his order and paid
+a deposit down and the people at the shop sent it up to his house in a
+truck with historic scenes such as Washington Crossing the Delaware and
+Daniel in the Lions' Den painted on the sides of the truck, and after that
+he had nothing to worry about in connection with the transaction except
+the monthly installments.
+</p>
+<p>
+You see, I date back to the Rutherford B. Hayes period of American
+architecture and applied designing—-a period which had a solid
+background of mid-Victorian influence with a trace of Philadelphia
+Centennial running through it, being bounded at the farther end by such
+sterling examples of parlor statuary as the popular pieces respectively
+entitled, “Welcoming the New Minister,” “Bringing Home the Bride,” and
+“Baby's First Bath,” and bounded at the nearer end by burnt-wood plaques
+and frames for family portraits with plush insets and hand-painted flowers
+on the moldings. By the conceptions of those primitive times nothing so
+set off the likeness of a departed great-aunt as a few red-plush insets.
+</p>
+<p>
+Some of my most cherished boyhood memories centered about bird's-eye-maple
+bedroom sets and parlor furniture of heavy black walnut trimmed in a
+manner which subsequently came to be popular among undertakers for the
+adornment of the casket when they had orders to spare no expense for a
+really fashionable or—as the saying went then—a tony funeral.
+Tony subsequently became nobby and nobby is now swagger, but though the
+idioms change with the years the meaning remains the same. When the parlor
+was opened for a formal occasion—it remained closed while the
+ordinary life of the household went on—its interior gave off a rich
+deep turpentiny smell like a paint-and-varnish store on a hot day. And the
+bird's-eye maple, as I recall, had a high slick finish which, however, did
+not dim the staring, unwinking effect of the round knots which so
+plentifully dappled its graining. Lying on the bed and contemplating the
+footboard gave one the feeling that countless eyes were looking at one,
+which in those days was regarded as highly desirable.
+</p>
+<p>
+I remember all our best people favored bird's-eye maple for the company
+room. They clung to it, too. East Aurora had a hard struggle before it
+made any noticeable impress upon the decorative tendencies of West
+Kentucky, for we were a conservative breed and slow to take up the mission
+styles featuring armchairs weighing a couple of hundred pounds apiece and
+art-craft designs in hammered metals and semi-tanned leathers. Moreover, a
+second-hand shop in our town was not an antique shop; it was what its name
+implied—a second-hand shop. You didn't go there to buy things you
+wanted, but to sell things you did not want.
+</p>
+<p>
+So in view of these youthful influences it should be patent to all that,
+having other things to think of—such, for example, as making a
+living—I did not realize that in New York at least those wishful of
+following the modes did not go to a good live shop making a specialty of
+easy payments when they had a house-furnishing proposition on their hands.
+That might be all very well for the pedestrian classes and for those
+living in the remote districts who kept a mail-order catalogue on the
+center table and wrote on from time to time with the money order enclosed.
+</p>
+<p>
+I soon was made to understand that the really correct thing was first of
+all to call in a professional decorator, if one could afford it. A
+professional decorator is a person of either sex who can think up more
+ways and quicker ways of spending other people's money than the director
+of a shipping board can. But whether you retained the services of a
+regular decorator or elected to struggle along on your own, you went for
+your purchases to specialty shops or to antique shops, or—best of
+all—to the smart auction shops on or hard by Fifth Avenue and
+Madison Avenue.
+</p>
+<p>
+Than the auction rooms in the Fifth Avenue district I know of no places
+better adapted for studying patina, wormholing and human nature in a
+variety of interesting phases. To such an establishment, on the days when
+a sale is announced—which means two or three times a week for a good
+part of the year—repair wealthy patrons, patrons who were wealthy
+before the mania for bidding in things came upon them, as it does come
+upon so many, and patrons who are trying to look as though they were
+wealthy. The third group are in the majority.
+</p>
+<p>
+Amateur collectors come, on the lookout for lace fans or Japanese bronzes
+or Chinese ceramics or furniture or pictures or hangings or rugs or
+tapestries, or whatever it is that constitutes their favorite hobby. There
+are sure to be prominent actor folk and author folk in this category.
+Dealers are on hand, each as wise looking as a barnful of hoot-owls and
+talking the jargon of the craft.
+</p>
+<p>
+Agents from rival auction houses are sometimes seen, ready, should the
+opportunity present itself, to snap up a bargain with intent to reauction
+it at their own houses at a profit. With the resident proprietor one of
+this gentry is about as popular as a bat in a boarding school, but since
+there is no law to bar him out and since it is in the line of business for
+him to be present, why present he generally is.
+</p>
+<p>
+Rich women drive up in their town cars and shabby purveyors of antique
+wares from little clutter-hole shops on cross streets at the fringe of the
+East Side shamble in on their fiat arches. Then, too, there are the
+habitués of the auction room habit; women mostly, but some men too,
+unfortunate creatures who have fallen victim to an incurable vice and to
+whom the announcement in the papers of an unusual sale is lure sufficient
+to draw them hither whether or not they hope to buy anything; and finally
+there are representatives of a common class in any big city—individuals
+who go wherever free entertainment is provided and especially to spots
+where they are likely to see assembled notables of the stage or society or
+of high financial circles.
+</p>
+<p>
+The auctioneer almost invariably is of a compounded and composite type
+that might be described as part matinée idol, part professional
+revivalist, part floor walker, part court jester and part jury pleader,
+with just a trace of a suggestion of the official manner of the well-to-do
+undertaker stirred into the mixture. By sight at least he knows all of his
+regular customers and is inclined with a special touch of respectful
+affection toward such of them as prefer on these occasions to be known by
+an initial rather than by name.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And sold to Mr. B.,” he says with a gracious smile. Or—“Now then,
+Mrs. H., doesn't this bea-u-tiful varse mean anything to you?” he inquires
+deferentially when the bidding lags. “Did I hear you offer seven hundred
+and fifty, Colonel J.?” he asks in a tone of deep solicitude.
+</p>
+<p>
+By long acquaintance with his regular clientèle, or perhaps by a sort of
+intuition which is not the least of his gifts, he is able to interpret
+into sums of currency a nod, a wink, a raised finger, a shrug or the lift
+of an eyebrow, at a distance of anywhere from ten to sixty feet.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the face of disappointments manifolded a thousand times a month this
+man yet remains an unfailing optimist. Watching him in action one gets the
+impression that he reads none but glad books, goes to none save glad plays
+and when the weather is inclement shares the viewpoint of that sweet
+singer of the Sunny South who wrote to the effect that it is not raining
+rain to-day, it's raining daffodils, and then two lines further along
+corrects his botany to state that having been convinced of his error of a
+moment before he now wishes to take advantage of this opportunity to
+inform the public that it is not raining rain to-day, but on the contrary
+is raining roses down, or metrical words to that general tenor. He was a
+good poet, as poets go, but not the sort of person you would care to loan
+your best umbrella to.
+</p>
+<p>
+In another noticeable regard our auctioneer friend betrays somewhat the
+same abrupt shiftings of temperamental manifestations that are reputed to
+have been shown by Ben Bolt's lady friend. I am speaking of the late
+lamented Sweet Alice, who—as will be recalled—would weep with
+delight when you gave her a smile, but trembled with fear at your frown.
+Apparently Alice couldn't help behaving in this curious way—one
+gathers that she must have been the village idiot, harmless enough but
+undoubtedly an annoying sort of person to have hanging round, weeping
+copiously whenever anybody else was cheerful, and perhaps immediately
+afterward trembling in a disconcerting sort of way. She must have spoiled
+many a pleasant party in her day, so probably it was just as well that the
+community saw fit to file her away in the old churchyard in the obscure
+corner mentioned more or less rhythmically in the disclosures recorded as
+having been made to Mr. Bolt upon the occasion of his return to his native
+shire after what presumably had been a considerable absence.
+</p>
+<p>
+The poet chronicler, Mr. English, is a trifle vague on this point, but
+considering everything it is but fair to infer that Alice's funeral was
+practically by acclamation. Beyond question it must have been a relief to
+all concerned, including the family of deceased, to feel that a person so
+grievously afflicted mentally was at last permanently planted under a
+certain slab of stone rather loosely described in the conversation just
+referred to as granite so gray. One wishes Mr. English had been a trifle
+more exact in furnishing the particular details of this sad case. Still, I
+suppose it is hard for a poet to be technical and poetical at the same
+time. And though he failed to go into particulars I am quite sure that
+when asked if he didn't remember Alice, Mr. Bolt answered in the decided
+affirmative. It is a cinch he couldn't have forgotten her, the official
+half-wit and lightning-change artist of the county.
+</p>
+<p>
+But whereas this unfortunate young woman's conduct may only be accounted
+for on the grounds of a total irresponsibility, there is method behind the
+same sharply contrasted shift of mood as displayed by the chief salesman
+of the auction room. He is thrilled—visibly and physically thrilled—at
+each rapidly recurring opportunity of presenting an article for disposal
+to the highest bidder; hardly can he control his emotions of joy at the
+prospect of offering this particular object to an audience of
+discriminating tastes and balanced judgment. But mark the change: How
+instantly, how completely does a devastating and poignant distress
+overcome him when his hearers perversely decline to enter into spirited
+competition for a thing so priceless! A sob rises in his throat, choking
+his utterance to a degree where it becomes impossible for him to speak
+more than three or four hundred words per minute; grief dims his eye;
+regret—not on his own account but for others—droops his
+shoulders. When it comes to showing distress he makes that poor
+feeble-minded Alice girl look like a beginner. Yet repeated shocks of this
+character fail to daunt the sunniness of his true nature. The harder his
+spirits are dashed down to earth the greater the resiliency and the
+buoyancy with which they bounce up again. The man has a soul of new
+rubber!
+</p>
+<p>
+Let us draw near and scrutinize the scene that unfolds itself at each
+presentation: The attendants fetch out an offering described in the
+printed catalogue, let us say, as Number 77 A: Oriental Lamp with Silk
+Shade. Reverently they place it upon a velvet-covered stand in a space at
+the back end of the salesroom, where a platform is inclosed in draperies
+with lights so disposed overhead and in the wings as to shed a soft
+radiance upon the inclosed area. The helpers fade out of the picture
+respectfully. A tiny pause ensues; this stage wait has been skillfully
+timed; a suitable atmosphere subtly has been created. Oh, believe me, in
+New York we do these things with a proper regard for the dramatic values—culture
+governs all!
+</p>
+<p>
+The withdrawal of the attendants is the cue for our sunny friend, perched
+up as he is behind his little pulpit with his little gavel in his hand, to
+fall gracefully into a posture bespeaking in every curve of it a
+worshipful, almost an idolatrous admiration.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And now, ladies and gentlemen”—hear him say it—“I have the
+pleasure and the privilege of submitting for your approval one of the
+absolute gems of this splendid collection. A magnificent example of the
+Ming period—mind you, a genuine Ming. I am confidentially informed
+by the executors of the estate of the late Mr. Gezinks, the former owner
+of these wonderful belongings, that it was the prize piece of his entire
+collection. Look at the color—just look at the shape! Worth a
+thousand dollars if it is worth a cent. Try to buy it in one of the
+antique shops round the corner for that—just try, that's all I ask
+you to do. Now then”—this with a cheery, inviting, confident smile—“now
+then, what am I offered? Who'll start it off at five hundred?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+There is no answer. A look of surprise not unmixed with chagrin crosses
+his mobile countenance. From his play of expression you feel that what he
+feels, underlying his other feelings, is a sympathy for people so blinded
+to their own good luck as not to leap headlong and en masse at this
+unparalleled chance.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Tut tut!” he exclaims and again, “tut tut! Very well, then,”—his
+tone is resigned—“do I hear four hundred and seventy-five—four
+hundred and fifty? Who'll start it at four twenty-five?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+His gaze sweeps the faces of the assemblage. It is a compelling gaze,
+indeed you might say mes-meristic. There is a touch of pathos in it,
+though, an unuttered appeal to the gathering to consider its own several
+interests.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Do I hear four hundred?” He speaks of four hundred as an ostrich might
+speak of a tomtit's egg—as something comparatively insignificant and
+puny.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Twenty dollars!” pipes a voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+He clasps his hand to his brow. This is too much; it is much too much. But
+business is business. He rallies; he smiles bitterly, wanly. His soul
+within him is crushed and bruised, but he rallies. Rallying is one of the
+best things he does and one of the most frequent. The bidding livens,
+slackens, lags, then finally ceases. With a gesture betokening utter
+despair, with lineaments bathed in the very waters of woe, he
+heart-brokenly knocks the vase down to somebody for $88.50.
+</p>
+<p>
+But by the time the hired men have fetched forth Lot 78 he miraculously
+has recovered his former confidence and for the forty-oddth time since two
+o'clock—it is now nearly three forty-five—is his old cheerful
+beaming self. Thirty seconds later his heart has been broken in a fresh
+place; yet we may be sure that to-morrow morning when he rises he will be
+whistling a merry roundelay, his faith in the innate goodness of human
+nature all made new and fully restored to him. He would make a perfectly
+bully selection if you were sending a messenger to a home to break to an
+unsuspecting household some such tragic tidings, say; as that the head of
+the family, while rounding a turn on high, had skidded and was now being
+removed from the front elevation of an adjacent brick wall with a putty
+knife. If example counted for anything at all, he would have the mourners
+all cheered up again and the females among them discussing the most
+becoming modes in black crepe in less than no time at all.
+</p>
+<p>
+My, my, but how my sense of understanding did broaden under the influence
+of the auction sales we attended through the spring and on into the
+Summer. When the morning paper came we would turn to the advertising
+section and look for auction announcements. If there was to be one, and
+generally there was—one or more—we canceled all other plans
+and attended. Going to auctions became our regular employment, our
+pastime, our entertainment. It became our obsession. It almost became our
+joint calling in life. To our besetting mania we sacrificed all else.
+</p>
+<p>
+I remember there was one afternoon when John McCormack was billed to sing.
+I am very fond of hearing John McCormack. For one thing, he generally
+sings in a language which I can understand, and for another, I like his
+way of singing. He sings very much as I would sing if I had decided to
+take up singing for a living instead of writing. This is only one of the
+sacrifices I have made for the sake of English literature.
+</p>
+<p>
+McCormack that day had to struggle through without me. Because there was a
+sale of Italian antiques billed for three p. m., and we were going to have
+an Italian hall and an Italian living room in the new house, and we felt
+it to be our bounden duty to attend.
+</p>
+<p>
+It took some time and considerable work on the part of those fitted to
+guide me in the matter of decorations before I fell entirely into the idea
+of an Italian room, this possibly being due to the fact that I was born so
+far away from Italy and passed through childhood with so few Italian
+influences coming into my life. Even now I balk at the idea of hanging any
+faded red-silk stoles or copes, or whatever those ecclesiastical garments
+are, on my walls. I reserve the right to admire such a vestment when it is
+worn by the officiating cleric at church, but for the life of me and
+despite all that has repeatedly been said to me on the subject I fail to
+see where it belongs in a simple household as a part of the scheme of
+ornamentation.
+</p>
+<p>
+I do not think it proper to display a strange clergyman's cast-off costume
+in my little home any more than I would expect the canon of a cathedral to
+let me hang up a pair of my old overalls in his cathedral. Nor—if I
+must confess it—have I felt myself greatly drawn to the suggestion
+that we should have a lot of tall hand-painted candles sitting or standing
+round in odd spots. I mean those candlesticks which are painted in faded
+colors, with touches of dull gilt here and there on them and which are
+called after a lady named Polly Crome—their original inventor, I
+suppose she was, though her name does sound more as if Arnold Bennett had
+written her than as if she were a native Italian. I imagine she thought up
+this idea of a hand-painted candlestick nine feet tall and eighteen inches
+through at the base, and then in her honor the design was called after
+her, which in my humble opinion was compounding one mistake on top of
+another. Likewise I fear that I shall never become entirely reconciled to
+these old-model Italian chairs. My notion of a chair is something on which
+a body can sit for as long as half an hour without anesthetics. In most
+other details concerning antique furniture they have made a true believer
+out of me, but as regards chairs I am still some distance from being
+thoroughly converted. In chairs I favor a chair that is willing to meet
+you halfway, as it were, in an effort to be mutually comfortable. The
+other kind—the kind with a hard flat wooden seat and short legs and
+a stiff high back, a chair which looks as though originally it had been
+designed to be used by a clown dog in a trained animal act—may be
+artistic and beautiful in the chasteness of its lines and all this and
+that; but as for me, I say give me the kind of chair that has fewer
+admirers and more friends in the fireside circle. I take it that the early
+Italians were not a sedentary race. They could not have figured on staying
+long in one place.
+</p>
+<p>
+I suppose the trouble with me is that I was born and brought up on the
+American plan and have never entirely got over it. In fact I was told as
+much, though not perhaps in exactly those words, when antiques first
+became a vital issue in our domestic life. In no uncertain terms I was
+informed that everybody who is anybody goes in for the Italian these
+times. I believe the only conspicuous exceptions to the rule are the
+Italians who have emigrated to these shores. They, it would appear, are
+amply satisfied with American fixtures and fittings. I have a suspicion
+that possibly some of them in coming hither may have been actuated by a
+desire to get as far away as possible from those medieval effects in
+plumbing which seem to be inseparable from Old World architecture.
+</p>
+<p>
+My education progressed another step forward on the occasion of my first
+visit to an auction room where presumably desirable pieces of Italian
+workmanship were displayed as a preliminary to their being disposed of by
+public outcry. I was accompanied by a friend—the wormholeist already
+mentioned—and when he lapsed into rhapsodies over a pair of gilt
+mirrors, or rather mirrors which once upon a time, say about the time of
+the Fall of the Roman Empire, had been gilded, I was astonished.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Surely,” I said, “nobody would want those things. See where the glass is
+flawed—the quicksilver must be pretty nearly all gone from the backs
+of them. And the molding is falling off in chunks and what molding is left
+is so dingy and stained that it doesn't look like anything at all. If
+you're asking me, I'd call those mirrors a couple of total losses.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Exactly!” he said. “That is precisely what makes them so desirable. You
+can't counterfeit such age as these things show, my boy.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“I shouldn't care to try,” I said. “Where I came from, when a mirror got
+in such shape that you couldn't see yourself in it it was just the same to
+us as a chorus girl that had both legs cut off in a railroad accident—it
+was regarded as having lost most of its practical use in life. Still, it
+is not for me, a raw green novice, a sub-novice as you might say, to set
+myself up against an expert like you. Anyhow, as the fellow said, live and
+learn. Let us move along to the next display of moldy remains.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+We did so. We came to a refectory table. Ordinarily a refectory table
+mainly differs in outline from the ordinary dining table by being
+constructed on the model of a dachshund. But this table, I should guess
+offhand, had seen about four centuries of good hard steady refecting at
+the hands of succeeding generations of careless but earnest feeders. Its
+top was chipped and marred by a million scars, more or less. Its legs were
+scored and worn down. Its seams gaped. From sheer weakness it canted far
+down to one side. The pressure of a hand upon it set the poor, slanted,
+crippled wreck to shaking as though along with all its other infirmities
+it had a touch of buck ague.
+</p>
+<p>
+“What about this incurable invalid?” I asked. “Unless the fellow who buys
+it sends it up in a padded ambulance it'll be hard to get it home all in
+one piece. I suppose that makes it all the more valuable, eh?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Absolutely!” he said. “It's a perfectly marvelous thing! I figure it
+should bring at least six hundred dollars.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“And cheap enough,” I said. “Why, it must have at least six hundred
+dollars' worth of things the matter with it. A good cabinet-maker could
+put in a nice busy month just patching—”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“You don't understand,” he said. “You surely wouldn't touch it?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“I shouldn't dare to,” I said. “I was speaking of a regular cabinet-maker.
+No green hand should touch it—he'd have it all in chunks in no
+time.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“But the main value of it lies in leaving it in its present shape,” he
+told me. “Don't you realize that this is a condition which could never be
+duplicated by a workman?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Well, I've seen some house wreckers in my time who could produce a pretty
+fair imitation,” I retorted playfully. I continued in a musing vein, for
+the sight of that hopelessly damaged wreck all worn down and dented in and
+slivered off had sent my mind backward to a memory of early childhood. I
+said:
+</p>
+<p>
+“I can see now how my parents made a mistake in stopping me from doing
+something I tackled when I was not more than six years old. I was an
+antiquer, but I didn't know it and they didn't know it. They thought that
+I was damaging the furniture, when as a matter of fact in my happy,
+innocent, childish way I was adding touches to it which would have been
+worth considerable money by now.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+What I was thinking of was this: On my sixth birthday, I think it was, an
+uncle of mine for whom I was named gave me a toy tool chest containing a
+complete outfit of tools. There was a miniature hammer and a plane and a
+set of wooden vises and a gimlet and the rest of the things which belong
+in a carpenter's kit, but the prize of the entire collection to my way of
+thinking was a cross-cut saw measuring about eight inches from tip to tip.
+</p>
+<p>
+Armed with this saw, I went round sawing things, or rather trying to. I
+could not exactly saw with it, but I could haggle the edges and corners of
+wood, producing a gnawed, frazzled effect. My quest for stuff suitable to
+exercise my handicraft on led me into the spare, or company room, where I
+found material to my liking. I was raking away at the legs of a rosewood
+center table—had one leg pretty well damaged to my liking and was
+preparing to start on another—when some officious grown person
+happened in on me and stopped me with violent words. If I had but been
+left undisturbed for half an hour or so I doubtless would have achieved a
+result which now after a lapse of thirty-odd years would have thrilled a
+lover of antiques to the core of his being. But this was not to be.
+</p>
+<p>
+My present recollection of the incident is that I was chided in a painful
+physical way. The latter-day system of inculcating lessons in the mind of
+the child according to a printed form chart of soothing words was not
+known in our community at that time. The old-fashioned method of using the
+back of a hairbrush and imparting the lesson at the other end of the child
+from where the mind is and letting it travel all the way through him was
+employed. I was then ordered to go outdoors where there would be fewer
+opportunities for engaging in what adults mistakenly called mischief.
+</p>
+<p>
+Regretting that the nurse that morning had seen fit to encase me in
+snug-fitting linen breeches instead of woolen ones, I wandered about
+carrying my saw in one hand and with the other hand from time to time
+rubbing a certain well-defined area of my small person to allay the
+afterglow. In the barnyard I came upon an egg lying on the edge of a mud
+puddle under the protecting lee of the chicken-yard fence. I can shut my
+eyes and see that egg right now. It was rather an abandoned-looking egg,
+stained and blotched with brownish-yellow spots. It had the look about it
+of an egg with a past—a fallen egg, as you might say.
+</p>
+<p>
+Some impulse moved me to squat down and draw the toothed blade of my saw
+thwartwise across the bulge of that egg. For the first time in my little
+life I was about to have dealings with a genuine antique, but naturally at
+my age and with my limited experience I did not realize that. Probably I
+was actuated only by a desire to find out whether I could saw right
+through the shell of an egg amidships. That phase of the proceedings is
+somewhat blurred in my mind, though the dénouement remains a vivid memory
+spot to this very day.
+</p>
+<p>
+I imparted a brisk raking movement to the saw. It is my distinct
+recollection that a fairly loud explosion immediately occurred. I was
+greatly shocked. One too young to know aught of the chemical effect on the
+reactions following the admission of fresh air to gaseous matter, which
+has been forming to the fulminating point within a tightly sealed casing,
+would naturally be shocked to have an egg go off suddenly in that violent
+manner. Modern military science, I suppose, would classify it as having
+been a contact egg.
+</p>
+<p>
+Not only was I badly shocked, but also I had a profound conviction that in
+some way I had been taken advantage of—that my confidence had in
+some strange fashion been betrayed. I left my saw where I had dropped it.
+At the moment I felt that never again would I care to have anything to do
+with a tool so dangerous. I also left the immediate vicinity of where the
+accident had occurred and for some minutes wandered about in rather a
+distracted fashion. There did not seem to be any place in particular for
+me to go, and yet I could not bear to stay wherever I was. I wished, as it
+were, to get entirely away from myself—a morbid fancy perhaps for a
+mere six-year-old to be having, and yet, I think, a natural one under the
+circumstances.
+</p>
+<p>
+I had a conviction that I would not be welcomed indoors and at the same
+time realized that even out in the great open where I could get air—and
+air was what I especially craved—I was likely to be shunned by such
+persons as I might accidentally encounter. Indeed I rather shunned myself,
+if you get what I mean. I was filled with a general shunning sensation. I
+felt mortified, too. And this emotion, I found a few minutes later, was
+shared by the black cook, who, issuing from the kitchen door, happened
+upon me in the act of endeavoring to freshen up myself somewhat from a
+barrel of rain water which stood under the eaves. She evidently decided
+offhand that not only had mortification set in but that it had reached an
+advanced stage. Her language so indicated.
+</p>
+<p>
+And now, after more than three and a half decades, here on Fifth Avenue
+more than a thousand miles remote from those infantile scenes, I was
+gleaning another memorable lesson about antiques. I was learning that junk
+ceases to be junk if only it costs enough money, and thereafter becomes
+treasure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Having had this great principal fact firmly implanted in my consciousness,
+I shortly thereafter embarked in congenial company upon the auction-room
+life upon which already I have touched. We went to sales when we had
+anything to buy and when we had nothing to buy—somehow we did not
+seem to be able to stay away. The joy of bidding a thing up and maybe of
+having it knocked down to us undermined our pooled will power; it weakened
+our joint resistance.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And sold to——” became our slogan, our shibboleth and our most
+familiar sentence. By day we heard it, by night it dinned in our ears as
+we slept, dreaming dreams of going bankrupt in this mad, delirious pursuit
+which had mastered us and spending our last days in a poorhouse entirely
+furnished in Italian antiques.
+</p>
+<p>
+But taking everything into consideration, I must say the game was worth
+the candle. By degrees we acquired the furnishings for our two Italian
+rooms and our other rooms—which, thank heaven, are not Italian but
+what you might call fancy-mixed! And by degrees likewise I perfected my
+artistic education. Of course we made mistakes in selection, as who does
+not? We have a few auction-room skeletons tucked away in our closet, or to
+speak more exactly, in the attic of the new house. But in the main we are
+satisfied with what we have done and no doubt will continue to be until
+Italian-style furniture goes out and Aztec Indian or Peruvian Inca or
+Thibetan Grand Llama or some other style comes in.
+</p>
+<p>
+And when our friends drop in for an evening we talk decorations and
+furnishings—it is a subject which never wears out. Mostly the women
+callers favor discussions of tapestries and brocades with intervals spent
+in fits of mutual wonder over the terrible taste shown by some other woman—not
+present—in buying the stuff for her house; and the men are likely to
+be interested in carvings or paintings; but my strong suit is wormholing
+in all its branches—that and patina. I am very strong on the latter
+subject, also. In fact among friends I am now getting to be known as the
+Patina Kid.
+</p>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VIII, THE ADVENTURE OF LADY MAUDE
+</h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> have dealt at length with our adventures at Fifth Avenue auction houses
+when we were amassing the furnishings for our Italian rooms and our
+Italian hallway. But I forgot to make mention of the many friends we
+encountered at the salesrooms—people who always before had seemed to
+us entirely normal, but now were plainly to be recognized for devotees of
+the same passion for bidding-in which had lain its insidious clutches upon
+us. I recall one victim in particular, a young woman whom I shall call
+Maude because that happens to be her name.
+</p>
+<p>
+Theretofore this Maude lady had impressed mo as being one of the sanest,
+most competent females of my entire acquaintance—good-looking, witty
+and with a fine sense of proportion. Yet behold, here she was, balanced on
+the edge of a folding chair in an overheated, overcrowded room, her eyes
+feverish with a fanatical light, a printed catalogue clutched in her left
+hand and her right ready to go up in signal to the hypnotic gentleman on
+the auctioneer's block. At a glance we knew the symptoms because in them
+we saw duplicated our own. We knew exactly what ailed her: She was bidding
+on various articles, not because she particularly wanted them, but because
+she feared unless she bought them some stranger might.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the sale had ended and her excitement—and ours—had
+abated we exchanged confidences touching on our besetting mania.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Just coming and buying something that I wish afterward I hadn't bought
+isn't the worst of it,” she owned. “That is destructive only to my
+spending allowance. My chief trouble is that I've gotten so I can't bear
+to think of spending my afternoons anywhere except at this place or one of
+the places like it. And if there happen to be two sales going the same day
+at different shops I'm perfectly miserable. All the time I'm sitting in
+one I'm distracted by the thought that possibly I'm missing some perfectly
+wonderful bargain at the other. Sometimes I suspect that my intellect is
+beginning to give way under the strain, and then again I'm sure I'm on the
+verge of a nervous breakdown. My husband has his own diagnosis. He says
+I'm just plain nutty, as he vulgarly expresses it. He has taken to calling
+me Nutchita, which he says is Spanish for a little nut. You know since
+Scott came back from South America he just adores to show off the Spanish
+he learned. He loves to tell how he went to a bull fight down there and
+saw the gallant mandatory stab the charging parabola to the heart with his
+shining bolero or whatever you call it.
+</p>
+<p>
+“He says there is no hope of curing me and he appreciates the fact that
+teams of horses couldn't drag me away from these auction rooms, but he
+suggested that maybe we might be saved from spending our last days at the
+almshouse if before I started out on my mad career each afternoon I'd get
+somebody to muffle me and tie my arms fast so I couldn't bid on anything.
+But even if I couldn't speak or gesticulate I could still nod, so I
+suppose that wouldn't help. Besides, as I said to him, I would probably
+attract a good deal of attention riding down Fifth Avenue with my hands
+tied behind my back and a gag in my mouth. But he says he'd much rather I
+were made conspicuous now than that I should be even more conspicuous
+later on at a feeble-minded institute; he says they'd probably keep me in
+a strait-jacket anyhow after I reached the violent stage and that I might
+as well begin getting used to the feeling now.
+</p>
+<p>
+“All joking aside, though, I really did have a frightful experience last
+winter,” she continued. “There was a sale of desirable household effects
+advertised to take place up at Blank's on West Forty-fifth Street and of
+course I went. I've spent so much of my time at Blank's these last few
+months I suppose people are beginning to think I live there. Well, anyway,
+I was one of the first arrivals and just as I got settled the auctioneer
+put up a basket; a huge, fiat, curious-looking, wickerwork affair, it was.
+You never in all your life saw such a basket! It was too big for a
+soiled-clothes hamper and besides wasn't the right shape. And it was too
+flat to store things in and it didn't have any top on it either. I suppose
+you would just call it a kind of a basket.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, the man put it up and asked for bids on it, but nobody bid; and
+then the auctioneer looked right at me in an appealing sort of way—I
+feel that everybody connected with the shop is an old friend of mine by
+now, and especially the auctioneer—so when he looked in my direction
+with that yearning expression in his eye I bid a dollar just to start it
+off for him. And what do you think? Before you could say scat he'd knocked
+it down to me for a dollar. I just hate people who catch you up suddenly
+that way! It discouraged me so that after that the sale was practically
+spoiled for me. I didn't have the courage to bid on another thing the
+whole afternoon.
+</p>
+<p>
+“When the sale was over I went back to the packing room to get a good look
+at what I'd bought. And, my dear, what do you suppose? I hadn't bought a
+single basket—that would have been bad enough—but no. I'd
+bought a job lot, comprising the original basket and its twin sister that
+was exactly like it, only homelier if anything, and on top of that an
+enormous square wooden box painted a bright green with a great lock
+fastening the lid down. That wretch of an auctioneer had deliberately
+taken a shameful advantage of me. How was I to know I was bidding in a
+whole wagonload of trash? Obtaining money under false pretenses, that's
+what I call it.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I stood aghast—or perhaps I should say I leaned aghast,
+because the shock was so great I felt I had to prop myself up against
+something. Why, the box alone must have weighed a hundred and fifty
+pounds. It didn't seem to be the sort of box you could put anything in
+either. It wouldn't do for a wood box or a coal box or a dog house or
+anything. It was just as useless as the baskets were, and they were
+nothing more nor less than two orders of willow-ware on the half shell.
+Even if they had been of any earthly use, what could I do with them in the
+tiny three-room apartment that we were occupying last winter? Isn't it
+perfectly shameful the way these auction-room people impose on the public?
+They don't make any exceptions either. Here was I, a regular customer, and
+just see what they had done to me, all because I'm so good-natured and
+sympathetic. I declare sometimes I'm ready to take a solemn oath I'll
+never do another favor for anybody so long as I live. It's the selfish
+ones who get along in this world!
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, when I realized what a scandalous trick had been played on me I was
+seized with a wild desire to get away. I decided I would try to slip out.
+But the manager had his eye on me. You know the rule they have: 'Claim all
+purchases and arrange for their removal before leaving premises, otherwise
+goods will be stored at owner's risk and cost.' And he called me back and
+told me my belongings were ready to be taken away and would I kindly get
+them out of the house at once because they took up so much room. Room?
+They took up all the room there was. You had to step into one of the
+baskets to get into the place and climb over the box to get out again.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I asked him how I was going to get those things up to my address and he
+suggested a taxi. I told him I would just run out and find a taxi,
+meaning, of course, to forget to come back. But he told me not to bother
+because there was a taxi at the door that had been ordered to come for
+somebody else and then wasn't needed. And before I could think up any
+other excuse to escape he'd called the taxi driver in. And the taxi man
+took one look at my collection of junk and then he asked us if we thought
+he was driving a moving van or a Noah's ark and laughed in a low-bred way
+and went out.
+</p>
+<p>
+“At that I had a faint ray of hope that maybe after all I might be saved,
+because I had made up my mind to tell the manager I would just step
+outside and arrange to hire a delivery wagon or something, and that would
+give me a chance to escape; but I think he must have suspected something
+from my manner because already he was calling in another taxi driver from
+off the street, and there I was, trapped. And the driver of the second
+taxi was more accommodating than the other one had been, though goodness
+knows his goodness of heart was no treat to me. I should have regarded it
+as a personal kindness on his part if he had behaved as the first driver
+had done. But no, nothing would do but that he must load that ghastly
+monstrosity of a box up alongside him on the rack where they carry trunks,
+and two of the packing-room men tied it on with ropes so it couldn't fall
+off and get lost. I suppose they thought by that they were doing me a
+favor! And then I got in the cab feeling like Marie Antoinette on her way
+to be beheaded, and they piled those two baskets in on top of me and the
+end of one of them stuck out so far that they couldn't get the door shut
+but had to leave it open. And then we rode home, only I didn't feel like
+Marie Antoinette any more; I felt like something that was being delivered
+in a crate and had come partly undone on the way.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And when we got up to Eighty-ninth Street that bare-faced robber of a
+taxicab driver charged me two extra fares—just think of such things
+being permitted to go on in a city where the police are supposed to
+protect people! And then he unloaded all that mess on the sidewalk in
+front of the apartment house and drove off and left me there standing
+guard over it—probably the forlornest, most helpless object in all
+New York at that moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I got one of the hallboys to call the janitor up from the basement and I
+asked him if he would be good enough to store my box and my two baskets in
+the storeroom where the tenants keep their trunks. And he said not on my
+life he wouldn't, because there wasn't any room to spare in the trunk room
+and then he asked me what I was going to do with all that truck anyway,
+and though it was none of his business I thought it would be tactful to
+make a polite answer and I told him I hadn't exactly decided yet and that
+I certainly would appreciate his kindness if he could just tuck my things
+away in some odd corner somewhere until I had fully made up my mind. While
+I was saying that I was giving him one of my most winning smiles, though
+it hurt like the toothache to smile under the circumstances and
+considering what I'd already been through.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But all he said was: 'Huh, lady, you couldn't tuck them things away at
+Times Square and Forty-third Street and that's the biggest corner I knows
+of in this town.'
+</p>
+<p>
+“The impudent scoundrel wouldn't relent a mite either, until I'd given him
+a dollar for a tip, and then he did agree to keep the baskets in the coal
+cellar for a couple of days but no longer. But he absolutely refused to
+take the box along too, so I had to have it sent upstairs to the apartment
+and put in the bedroom because it was too big to go in the hall. And when
+the men got it in the bedroom I could hardly get in myself to take off my
+hat. And after that I sat down and cried a little, because really I was
+frightfully upset, and moreover I had a feeling that when Scott came home
+he would be sure to try to be funny. You know how husbands are, being one
+yourself!
+</p>
+<p>
+“Sure enough, when he came in the first thing he saw was that box. He
+couldn't very well help seeing it because he practically fell over it as
+he stepped in the door. He said: 'What's this?' and I said: 'It's a box'—just
+like that. And he said: 'What kind of a box?' And I didn't like his tone
+and I said: 'A green box. I should think anybody would know that much.'
+And he said: 'Ah, indeed,' several times in a most aggravating way and
+walked round it. He couldn't walk all the way round it on account of the
+wall being in the way; but as far round it as he could walk without
+bumping into the wall. And he looked at it and felt it with his hand and
+kicked it once or twice and then he sniffed and said: 'And what's it for?'
+And I said: 'To put things in.' And he said: 'For instance, what?'
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now I despise for people to be so technical round me, and besides, of all
+the words in the English language I most abhor those words 'for instance';
+but I kept my temper even if I was boiling inside and I said: 'It's to put
+things in that you haven't any other place to put them in.' Which was
+ungrammatical, I admit, but the best I could do under the prevalent
+conditions. And then he looked at me until I could have screamed, and he
+said: 'Maude, where did you get that damned thing?' And I said it wasn't a
+damned thing but a perfectly good box made out of wood and painted green
+and everything; and that I'd got it at an auction sale for a dollar and
+that I considered it a real bargain. I didn't feel called on to tell him
+about the two baskets down in the coal cellar just yet. So I didn't
+mention them; and anyhow, heaven knows I was sick and tired of the whole
+subject and ready to drop it, but he kept on looking at it and sniffing
+and asking questions. Some people have no idea how a great strong brute of
+a man can nag a weak defenseless woman to desperation when he deliberately
+sets out to do it.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Finally I said: 'Well, even if you don't like the box I think it's a
+perfectly splendid box, and look what a good strong lock it has on it—surely
+that's worth something.' And he said: 'Well, let's see about that—where's
+the key?' And, my dear, then it dawned on me that I didn't have any key!
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, a person can stand just so much and no more. I'm a patient
+long-suffering woman and I've always been told that I had a wonderful
+disposition, but there are limits. And when he burst out laughing and
+wouldn't stop laughing but kept right on and laughed and laughed and
+leaned up against something and laughed some more until you could have
+heard him in the next block—why then, all of a sudden something
+seemed to give way inside of me and I burst out crying—I couldn't
+hold in another second—and I told him that I'd never speak to him
+again the longest day he lived and that he could go to Halifax or some
+other place beginning with the same initial and take the old box with him
+for all I cared; and just as I burst out of the room I heard him say: 'No,
+madam, when I married you I agreed to support you, but I didn't engage to
+take care of any air-tight, burglar-proof, pea-green box the size of a
+circus cage!' And I suppose he thought that was being funny, too. A
+perverted sense of humor is an awful cross to bear—in a husband!
+</p>
+<p>
+“So I went and lay down on the living-room couch with a raging, splitting,
+sick headache and I didn't care whether I lived or died, but on the whole
+rather preferred dying. After a little he came in, trying to hold his face
+straight, and begged my pardon. And I told him I would forgive him if he
+would do just two things. And he asked me what those two things were and I
+told him one was to quit snickering like an idiot every few moments and
+the other was never to mention boxes to me again as long as he lived. And
+he promised on his solemn word of honor he wouldn't, but he said I must
+bear with him if he smiled a little bit once in a while as the evening
+wore on, because when he did that he would be thinking about something
+very funny that had happened at the office that day and not thinking about
+what I would probably think he was thinking about at all. And then he said
+how about running down to the Plaza for a nice little dinner and I said
+yes, and after dinner I felt braced up and strong enough to break the news
+to him about the two baskets.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And he didn't laugh; in justice to him I must say that much for him. He
+didn't laugh. Only he choked or something, and had a very severe coughing
+spell. And then we went home and while he was undressing he fell over the
+box and barked his shins on it, and though it must have been a strain on
+him he behaved like a gentleman and swore only a little.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But, my dear, the worst was yet to come! The next day I had to arrange to
+send the whole lot to storage because we simply couldn't go on living with
+that box in the only bedroom we had; and the bill for cartage came to two
+dollars and a quarter. After I had seen them off to the storage warehouse
+I tried to forget all about them. As a matter of fact they never crossed
+my mind again until we moved out to the country in April and then I
+suddenly remembered about them—getting a bill for three months'
+storage at two dollars a month may have had something to do with bringing
+them forcibly to my memory—and I telephoned in and asked the manager
+of the storage warehouse if he please wouldn't give them to somebody and
+he said he didn't know anybody who would have all that junk as a gift. So
+it seemed to me the best thing and the most economical thing to do would
+be to pay the bill to date and bring them on out to the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But, as it turned out, that was a financial mistake, too. Because what
+with sending the truck all the way into town, thirty-eight miles and back
+again, and the wear and tear on the tires and the gasoline and the man's
+time who drove the truck and what Scott calls the overhead—though I
+don't see what he means by that because it is an open truck without any
+top to it at all—we figure, or rather Scott does, that the cost of
+getting them out to the country came to fourteen dollars.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And we still have them, and if you should happen to know of anybody or
+should meet anybody who'd like to have two very large roomy wicker baskets
+and a very well-made wooden box painted in all-over design in a very good
+shade of green and which may contain something valuable, because I haven't
+been able to open it yet to find out what's inside, and with a lock that
+goes with it, I wish you'd tell them that they can send up to our place
+and get them any time that is convenient to them. Or if they don't live
+too far away I'd be very glad to send the things over to them. Only I'd
+like for them to decide as soon as possible because the gardener, who is
+Swedish and awfully fussy, keeps coming in every few days and complaining
+about them and asking why I don't have them moved out of the greenhouse,
+which is where we are keeping them for the present, and put some other
+place where they won't be forever getting in his way. Only there doesn't
+seem to be any other suitable place to keep them in unless we build a shed
+especially for that purpose. Isn't it curious that sometimes on a
+hundred-acre farm there should be so little spare room? I should hate to
+go to the added expense of building that shed, and so, as I was saying
+just now, if you should happen upon any one who could use those baskets
+and that box please don't forget to tell them about my offer.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+<br /><br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p>
+<a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
+</p>
+<div style="height: 4em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+<h2>
+CHAPTER IX. US LANDED PROPRIETORS
+</h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>o the best of my ability I have been quoting Lady Maude verbatim; but if
+unintentionally I have permitted any erroneous quotations to creep into
+her remarks they will be corrected before these lines reach the reader's
+eye, because the next time she and Scott come over—they are
+neighbors of ours out here in Westchester—I mean to ask her to t
+read copy on this book. They drop in on us quite frequently and we talk
+furnishings, and Scott sits by and smokes and occasionally utters low
+mocking sounds under his breath, for as yet he has not been entirely won
+over to antiques. There are times when I fear that Scott, though a most
+worthy person in all other regards, is hopelessly provincial. Well, I was
+a trifle provincial myself before I took the cure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps I should say that sometimes we talk furnishings with Mistress
+Maude, but more often we talk farming problems, with particular reference
+to our own successes and the failures of our friends in the same sphere of
+endeavor. Indeed, farming is the commonest topic of conversation in our
+vicinity. Because, like us, nearly all our friends in this part of the
+country were formerly flat dwellers and because, like us, all of them have
+done a lot of experimenting in the line of intensified, impractical
+agriculture since they moved to the country.
+</p>
+<p>
+We seek to profit by one another's mistakes, and we do—that is, we
+profit by them to the extent of gloating over them. Then we go and make a
+few glaring mistakes on our own account, and when the word of it spreads
+through the neighborhood, seemingly on the wings of the wind, it is their
+turn to gloat. We have a regular Gloat Club with an open membership and no
+dues. If an amateur tiller of the soil and his wife drop in on us on a
+fine spring evening to announce that yesterday they had their first mess
+of green peas, whereas our pea vines are still in the blossoming state; or
+if in midsummer they come for the express purpose of informing us that
+they have been eating roasting ears for a week—they knowing full
+well that our early corn has suffered a backset—we compliment them
+with honeyed words, and outwardly our manner may bespeak a spirit of
+friendly congratulation, but in our souls all is bitterness.
+</p>
+<p>
+After they have left one catches oneself saying to one's helpmeet: “Well,
+the Joneses are nice people in a good many respects. Jones would loan you
+the last cent he had on earth if you were in trouble and needed it, and in
+most regards Mrs. Jones is about as fine a little woman as you'd meet in a
+day's ride. But dog-gone it, I wish they didn't brag so much!” Then one of
+us opportunely recalls that last year their potatoes developed a slow and
+mysterious wasting disease resembling malignant tetter, which carried off
+the entire crop in its infancy, whereas we harvested a cellarful of
+wonderful praties free from skin blemishes of whatever sort; and warmed by
+that delectable recollection we cheer up a bit. And if our strawberries
+turn out well or our apple trees bear heavily or our cow has twin calves,
+both of the gentler sex, we lose no time in going about the countryside to
+spread the tidings, leaving in our wake saddened firesides and hearts all
+abrim with the concentrated essence of envy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Practically all our little group specialize. We go in for some line that
+is absolutely guaranteed to be profitable until the expense becomes too
+great for a person of limited means any longer to bear up under. Then we
+drop that and specialize in another line, also recommended as being highly
+lucrative, for so long as we can afford it; and then we tackle something
+else again. It is a never-ending round of new experiences, because no
+matter how disastrously one's most recent experiment has tinned out the
+agricultural weeklies are constantly holding forth the advantages of a
+field as yet new and untried and morally insured to be one that will yield
+large and nourishing dividends. It is my sober conviction that the most
+inspired fiction writers in America—the men with the most buoyant
+imaginations—are the regular contributors to our standard
+agricultural journals. And next to them the most gifted romancers are the
+fellows who sell bulbs and seeds. They are not fabulists exactly, because
+fables have morals and frequently these persons have none, but they are
+inspired fancifiers, I'll tell the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+Each succeeding season finds each family among us embarking upon some new
+and fascinating venture. For instance, I have one friend who this year
+went in for bees—Italian bees, I think he said they were, though why
+he should have been prejudiced against the native-born variety I cannot
+understand. He used to drop in at our place to borrow a little cooking
+soda—he was constantly running out of cooking soda at his house
+owing to using so much of it on his face and hands and his neck for
+poulticing purposes—and tell us what charming creatures bees were
+and how much honey he expected to lay by that fall. From what he said we
+gathered that the half had never been told by Maeterlinck about the
+engaging personal habits and captivating tribal customs of bees; bees, we
+gathered, were, as a race, perhaps a trifle quicktempered and hot-headed,
+or if not exactly hotheaded at least hot elsewhere, but ever ready to
+forgive and forget and, once the heat of passion had passed, to let
+bygones be bygones. A bee, it seemed from his accounts, was one creature
+that always stood ready to meet you halfway.
+</p>
+<p>
+He finally gave up bee culture though, not because his enthusiasm had
+waned, for it did not, but for professional reasons solely. He is a
+distinguished actor and when he got the leading rôle in a new play it
+broke in on his study of the part to be dropping the manuscript every few
+minutes and grabbing up a tin dish and running out in an endeavor, by the
+power of music, to induce a flock of swarming bees to rehive themselves,
+or whatever it is bees are supposed to do when favored with a pie-pan
+solo. It seemed his bees had a perfect mania for swarming. The least
+little thing would set them off. There must have been too much artistic
+temperament about the premises for such emotional and flighty creatures as
+bees appear to be.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there was another reason: After the play went on he found it
+interfered with his giving the best that was in him to his art if he had
+to go on for a performance all bumpy in spots; also he discovered that
+grease paint had the effect of irritating a sting rather than soothing it.
+The other afternoon he came over and offered to give me his last remaining
+hive of bees. Indeed, he almost pressed them on me.
+</p>
+<p>
+I declined though. I told him to unload his little playmates on some
+stranger; that I valued his friendship and hoped to keep it; the more
+especially, as I now confessed to him, since I had lately thought that if
+literature ever petered out I might take up the drama as a congenial mode
+of livelihood, and in such case would naturally benefit through the good
+offices of a friend who was already in the business and doing well at it.
+Not, however, that I felt any doubt regarding my ultimate success. I do
+not mean by this that I have seriously considered playwriting as a regular
+profession. Once I did seriously consider it, but nobody else did, and
+especially the critics didn't. Remembering what happened to the only
+dramatic offering I ever wrote, I long ago made up my mind that if ever I
+wrote another play—which, please heaven, I shall not—I would
+call it Solomon Grundy, whether I had a character of that name in it or
+not. You may recall what happened to the original Solomon Grundy—how
+he was born on a Monday, began to fail on Thursday, passed away on
+Saturday of the same week and was laid to eternal rest on Sunday. So even
+though I never do another play I have the name picked out and ready and
+waiting.
+</p>
+<p>
+No, my next venture into the realm of Thespis, should necessity direct my
+steps thither, would land me directly upon the histrionic boards. Ever
+since I began to fill out noticeably I have nourished this ambition
+secretly. As I look at it, a pleasing plumpness of outline should be no
+handicap but on the contrary rather a help. My sex of course is against my
+undertaking to play The Two Orphans, otherwise I should feel no doubt of
+my ability to play both of them, and if they had a little sister I
+shouldn't be afraid to take her on, too. But I do rather fancy myself in
+the title rôles of The Corsican Brothers. If I should show some
+enterprising manager how he might pay out one salary and save another,
+surely the idea would appeal to him; and some of these fine days I may
+give the idea a try. So having this contingency in mind I gently but
+firmly told my friend to take his bees elsewhere. I told him I had no
+intention of looking a gift bee in the mouth.
+</p>
+<p>
+We have another neighbor who has gone in rather extensively for blooded
+stock with the intention ultimately of producing butter and milk for the
+city market. During practically all his active life he has been a
+successful theatrical manager, which naturally qualifies him for the cow
+business. He is doing very well at it too. So long as he continues to
+enjoy successful theatrical seasons he feels that he will be able to go on
+with cows. Being a shrewd and far seeing business man he has it all
+figured out that a minimum of three substantial enduring hits every autumn
+will justify him in maintaining his herd at its present proportions,
+whereas with four shows on Broadway all playing to capacity he might even
+increase it to the extent of investing in a few more head of registered
+thoroughbred stock.
+</p>
+<p>
+From him I have gleaned much regarding cows. Before, the life of a cow
+fancier had been to me as a closed book. Generally speaking, cows, so far
+as my personal knowledge went, were divided roughly into regular cows
+running true to sex, and the other kind of cows, which were invariably
+referred to with a deep blush by old-fashioned maiden ladies. True enough,
+we owned cows during the earlier stages of our rural life; in fact, we own
+one now, a mild-eyed creature originally christened Buttercup but called
+by us Sahara because of her prevalent habits. But gentle bone-dry Sahara
+is just a plain ordinary cow of undistinguished ancestry. In the preceding
+generations of her line scandal after scandal must have occurred; were she
+a bagpipe solo instead of a cow scarcely could she have in her more mixed
+strains than she has. We acquired her at a bargain in an auction sale; she
+is a bargain to any one desiring a cow of settled and steady habits,
+regular at her meals, always with an unfailing appetite and having a deep
+far-reaching voice. There is also an expectation that some future day we
+may also derive from her milk. However, this contingency rests, as one
+might say, upon the laps of the gods.
+</p>
+<p>
+The point I am getting at though is that Sahara, whatever else of merit
+she may possess in the matters of a kind disposition and a willingness to
+eat whatever is put before her, is after all but a mere common
+country-bred cow; whereas the cows whose society my wealthy neighbor
+cultivates are the pedigreed aristocrats of their breed, and for buying
+and selling purposes are valued accordingly. Why, from the way the
+proprietors of registered cows brag about their ancient lineage and their
+blue-blooded forbears you might think they were all from South Carolina or
+Massachusetts—the cows, I mean, not necessarily the proprietors.
+</p>
+<p>
+So it is with the man of whom I have been speaking. Having become a
+breeder of fancy stock he now appraises a cow not for what she can do on
+her own intrinsic merits but for the size of her family tree, provided she
+brings with her the documents to prove it. So far as cows are concerned he
+has become a confirmed ancestor worshipper. I am sure he would rather own
+a quarter interest in a collateral descendant of old Prince Bullcon the
+First of the royal family of the Island of Guernsey, even though the
+present bearer of the name were but an indifferent milker and of unsettled
+habits, than to be the sole possessor of some untitled but versatile cow
+giving malted milk and whipped cream. Such vagaries I cannot fathom. In a
+democratic country like this, or at least in a country which used to be
+democratic, it seems to me we should value a cow not for what her
+grandparents may have been; not for the names emblazoned on her
+genealogical record, but for what she herself is.
+</p>
+<p>
+The other Sunday we drove over to his place ostensibly to pay a neighborly
+call but really to plant distress in his fireside circle by incidentally
+mentioning that our young grapevines were bearing magnificently.
+</p>
+<p>
+You see, a member of the Gloat Club is expected to work at his trade
+Sundays as well as weekdays; and besides we had heard that his arbors,
+with the coming of the autumn, had seemed a bit puny. So the opportunity
+was too good to be lost and we went over.
+</p>
+<p>
+After I had driven the harpoon into his soul and watched it sink into him
+up to the barbs he took me out to see the latest improvements he had made
+in his cow bam and to call upon the newest addition to his herd. These
+times you can bed a hired hand down almost anywhere, but if you go in for
+blooded stock you must surround them with the luxuries to which they have
+been accustomed, else they are apt to go into a decline. He invited my
+inspection of the porcelain-walled stalls and the patent feeding devices
+and the sanitary fixtures which abounded on every hand, and to his
+recently installed cream separator. In my youth the only cream separator
+commonly in vogue was the type of drooping mustache worn by the average
+deputy sheriff, and anyhow, with it, cream separating was merely
+incidental, the real purposes of the mustache being to be ornamental and
+impressive and subtly to convey a proper respect for the majesty of the
+law. Often a town marshal wore one too. But the modern separator is a
+product of science and not a gift of Nature skillfully elaborated by the
+art of the barber. It costs a heap of money and it operates by machinery
+and no really stylish dairy farm is complete without it.
+</p>
+<p>
+When I had viewed these wonders he led me to a glorified pasture lot and
+presented me to the occupant—a smallish cow of, a prevalent henna
+tone. Except that she had rather slender legs and a permanent wave between
+the horns she seemed to my uninitiated eyes much the same as any other cow
+of the Jersey persuasion. I realized, however, that she must be very
+high-church. My friend, I knew, would harbor no nonconformist cows in his
+place, and besides, she distinctly had the high-church manner, a thing
+which is indefinable in terms of speech but unmistakably to be recognized
+wherever found. Otherwise, though, I could observe nothing about her
+calculated to excite the casual passer-by. But my friend was all
+enthusiasm.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now,” he said proudly, “what do you think of that for a perfect
+specimen?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Well,” I said, “anybody could tell that she's had a lot of refining
+influences coming into her life. She's no doubt cultured and ladylike to a
+degree; and she has the fashionable complexion of the hour and she's all
+marcelled up and everything, but excepting for these adornments has she
+any special accomplishments that are calculated to give her class?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Class!” he repeated. “Class, did you say? Say, listen! That cow has all
+the class there is. She's less than two years old and she cost me a cool
+fifteen hundred cash—and cheap at the figure, at that.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Fifteen hundred,” I murmured dazedly. “What does she give?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Why, she gives milk, of course,” he explained. “What else would she be
+giving?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Well,” I said, “I should think that at that price she should at least
+give music lessons. Perhaps she does plain sewing?”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“Say,” he demanded, “what do you expect for fifteen hundred dollars?
+Fifteen hundred is a perfectly ridiculous price to pay for a cow with a
+pedigree such as this cow has. She's registered back I don't know how far.
+It's the regal breeding you pay for when you get an animal like this—not
+the animal herself.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+But I refused to be swept off my feet. Before this I had associated with
+royalty. I once met a lineal descendant of William the Conqueror; he told
+me so himself. Being a descendant was apparently the only profession he
+had, and I judged this cow was in much the same line of business. “Well,”
+ I replied, “all I can say is that I wouldn't care if her ancestors came
+over on the Mayflower—if she belonged to me she'd have to show me
+something in the line of special endeavor. She'd have to have talents or
+we'd part company pretty pronto, I'm telling you.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+“It is evident you do not understand anything about blooded stock,” he
+said. “The grandmother of this cow was insured for fifteen thousand
+dollars, and her great-grandfather, King Bulbul, was worth a fortune. The
+owner was offered fifty thousand for him—and refused it.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+In my surprise I could only mutter over and over again the name of William
+Tell's brother. A great many people do not know that William Tell ever had
+a brother. His first name was Wat.
+</p>
+<p>
+After that my friend gave me up as one hopelessly sunken in ignorance, and
+by a mutual yet unspoken consent we turned the subject to the actors'
+strike, which was then in full blast. But at intervals ever since I have
+been thinking of what he told me. To my way of thinking there is something
+wrong with the economic system of a country which saddles an income tax on
+an unmarried man with an income of more than two thousand dollars a year
+and if he be married sinks the ax into all he makes above three thousand,
+leaving him the interest deduction on the extra one thousand, amounting, I
+believe, to about twelve dollars and a half, for the support of his wife,
+on the theory that under the present scale of living any reasonably
+prudent man can suitably maintain a wife on twelve-fifty a year—I
+repeat, there is something radically wrong with a government which does
+this to the wage-earner and yet passes right on by a cow that carries
+fifteen thousand in life insurance and a bull worth fifty thousand in his
+own right. It amounts to class privilege, I maintain. It's almost enough
+to make a man vote the Republican ticket, and I may yet do it, too,
+sometime when there aren't any Democrats running, just to show how I feel
+about it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yet others of our acquaintances in the amateur-farming group have taken up
+fruit growing or pigeons or even Belgian hares. Belgian hares have been
+highly recommended to us as being very prolific. You start in with one
+pair of domestic-minded Belgian hares and presently countless thousands of
+little Belgian heirs and heiresses are gladdening the landscape. From what
+I can hear the average Belgian hare has almost as many aunts and uncles
+and cousins as a microbe has. They pay well, too. You can sell a Belgian
+hare to almost anybody who hat never tried to eat one. But as we have only
+about sixty acres and part of that in woodland, we have felt that there
+was scarcely room enough for us to go in for Belgian hares without
+sacrificing space which we may require for ourselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mainly our experiments have been confined to hogs and poultry. I will not
+claim that we have been entirely successful in these directions. The
+trouble seems to be that our pigs are so tremendously opposed to race
+suicide and that our hens are so firmly committed to it. Now offhand you
+might think an adult animal of the swine family that completely gave
+herself over to the idea of multiplying and replenishing the earth with
+her species would be an asset to any farm, but in my own experience I have
+found that such is not always the case. Into the world a brood of little
+pinky-white squealers are ushered. They grow apace, devouring with avidity
+the most expensive brands of pig food that the grocer has in stock; and
+then, just when your mind is filled with delectable visions of hams in the
+smokehouse and flitches of bacon in the cellar and tierces of lard in the
+cold-storage room and spare-ribs and crackling and home-made country
+sausage and pork tenderloins on the table—why, your prospects
+deliberately go and catch the hog cholera and are shortly no more. They
+have a perfect mania for it. They'll travel miles out of their way to
+catch it; they'll sit up until all hours of the night in the hope of
+catching it. Hogs will swim the Mississippi River—and it full of ice—to
+get where hog cholera is. Our hogs have been observed in the act of
+standing in the pen with their snouts in the air, sniffing in unison until
+they attracted the germs of it right out of the air. It is very
+disheartening to be counting on bacon worth eighty cents a pound only to
+find that all you have on your hands is a series of hurried interments.
+</p>
+<p>
+In their own sphere of life turkeys are as suicidally minded as hogs are.
+I speak with authority here because we tried raising turkeys, too. For a
+young turkey to get its feet good and wet spells doom for the turkey, and
+accordingly it practically devotes its life to getting its feet wet. If it
+cannot escape from the pen into the damp grass immediately following a
+rain it will in its desperation take other measures with a view to
+catching its death of cold. One of the most distressing spectacles to be
+witnessed in all Nature is a half-grown feebleminded turkey obsessed with
+the maniacal idea that it was born a puddle duck, running round and round
+a coop trying to find a damp spot to stand on; it is a pitiful sight and
+yet exasperating. In order to get its feet wet an infant turkey has been
+known to jump down an artesian well two hundred feet deep. This is not
+mere idle rumor; it if a scientific fact well authenticated. If somebody
+would only invent a style of overshoe that might be worn in comfort by an
+adolescent turkey without making the turkey feel distraught or
+self-concious, that person would confer a boon upon the entire turkey race
+and at the same time be in a fair way to reap a fortune for himself. I
+know that a few months back if such an article had been in the market I
+would gladly have taken fifty pairs, assorted misses' and children's
+sizes.
+</p>
+<p>
+As for hens, I confess that at times I have felt like altogether
+abandoning my belief in the good faith and honest intentions of hens.
+Naturally one thinks of hens in connection with fresh-laid eggs, but my
+experience has been that the hen does not follow this line of reasoning.
+She prefers to go off on a different bent. She figures she was created to
+adorn society, not to gladden the breakfast platter of man. Or at any rate
+I would state that this has been the obsession customarily harbored by the
+hens which we have owned and which we persistently continue, in the face
+of disappointment compounded, to go on owning.
+</p>
+<p>
+We started out by buying, at a perfectly scandalous outlay, a collection
+of blooded hens of the white Plymouth Rock variety. We had been told that
+the sun never set on a setting white Plymouth Rock hen; that a white
+Plymouth Rock hen which had had the right sort of influences in her life
+and the right sort of hereditary instincts to guide her in her maturer
+career would inevitably dedicate her entire being to producing eggs. And
+we believed it until the hens we had purchased themselves offered proof to
+the absolute contrary.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was enough almost to break one's heart to see a great broad-beamed,
+full-busted husky hen promenading round the chicken run, eating her head
+off, gadding with her sister idlers, wasting the precious golden hours of
+daylight in idle social pursuits and at intervals saying to herself: “Lay
+an egg? Well, I guess not! Why should I entail a strain on my nervous
+system and deny myself the pleasures of the gay life for the sake of these
+people? If they were able to pay four dollars for me, sight unseen, they
+are sufficiently affluent to buy their own eggs. Am I right? I'll say I
+am!”
+ </p>
+<p>
+You could look at her expression and tell what she was thinking. And then
+when you went and made the rounds of the empty and untenanted nests you
+knew that you had correctly fathomed the workings of her mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+We tried every known argument on those hens in an effort to make them see
+the error of their ways and the advantages of eggs. We administered to
+them meat scraps and fresh carrots and rutabagas and sifted gravel and
+ground-up oyster shells; the only result was to make them finicky and
+particular regarding their diet. No longer were they satisfied with the
+things we ate ourselves; no, they must have special dishes; they wished to
+be pampered like invalids. We bought for them large quantities of costly
+chick feed—compounds guaranteed to start the most confirmed spinster
+hen to laying her head off.
+</p>
+<p>
+So far as I might observe, this, too, was of no avail. The more confirmed
+imbibers of the special dishes merely developed lumpy dropsical figures
+and sat about in shady spots and brooded in a morbid way as though they
+had heavy loads on their minds. We killed one of them as a sacrifice to
+scientific investigation and cut her open, and lo, she was burdened inside
+with half-developed yolks—a case, one might say, of mislaid eggs.
+</p>
+<p>
+In desperation I even thought of invoking the power of mental suggestion
+on them. Possibly it might help to hang up a picture of a lady sturgeon in
+the henhouse? Or would it avail to shoo them into a group and read aloud
+to them the begat chapter in the Old Testament?
+</p>
+<p>
+While I was considering these expedients some one suggested that probably
+the trouble lay in the fact that our fowls either were too highly bred or
+were too closely related and perhaps an infusion of new blood was what was
+needed. So now we went to the other extreme and added to our flock a
+collection of ordinary scrub hens, mixed as to breed and homely as to
+their outward appearance, but declared—by their former owner—to
+be passionately addicted to the pursuit of laying eggs. Conceding that
+this was true, the fact remained that immediately they passed into our
+possession they became slackers and nonproducers. I imagine the mistake we
+made was in permitting them to associate with the frivolous white
+débutantes we already owned; undoubtedly those confirmed bachelor maids
+put queer ideas into their heads, causing them to believe there was no
+nourishment in achieving eggs to be served up with a comparative
+stranger's fried ham. On the theory that they might require exercise to
+stimulate their creative faculties we let them range through the meadows.
+Some among them promptly deserted the grassy leas to ravage our garden;
+others made hidden nests in the edges of the thickets, where the hawks and
+the weasels and the skunks and the crows might fatten on the fruits of
+their misdirected industry. So we cooped them up again in their run,
+whereupon they developed rheumatism and sore eyes and a perverted craving
+for eating one another's tail feathers. At present our chicken yard is
+nothing more nor less than a hen sanitarium. But we do not despair of
+ultimate success with our hens. We may have to cross them with the Potomac
+shad, but we mean to persevere until victory has perched upon our roosts.
+As Rupert Hughes remarked when, after writing a long list of plays which
+died a-borning, he eventually produced a riotous hit of hits: “Well, I'm
+only human—I couldn't fail every time.”
+ </p>
+<p>
+I should have said that there is one fad to which all our Westchester
+County colony of amateur farmers are addicted. Some may pursue one
+agricultural hobby and some another, but almost without exception the
+members of our little community are confirmed hired-help fanciers. You
+meet a neighbor and he tells you that after a disastrous experience with
+Polled Polaks he is now about to try the White Face Cockneys; they have
+been highly recommended to him. And next month when you encounter him
+again he is experimenting with Italian road builders or Scotch gardeners
+or Swedish stable hands or Afro-American tree trimmers or what not.
+</p>
+<p>
+One member of our group after a prolonged season of alternating hopes and
+disappointments during which he first hired and then for good and
+sufficient reasons fired representatives of nearly all the commoner
+varieties—plain and colored, domestic and imported, strays, culls
+and mavericks—decided to try his luck in the city at one of the
+employment agencies specializing in domestic servitors for country places.
+He procured the address of such an establishment and repaired thither—simply
+attired in his everyday clothes. As soon as he entered the place he
+realized that he was in the wrong pew; here, plainly, was a shop to which
+repaired the proprietors of ostentatious estates rather than the modest
+owners of farms, among whom he numbered himself. He tried to back out,
+making himself as inconspicuous as possible in so doing, but at that
+before he succeeded in escaping he had two good jobs offered to him—one
+as assistant groom in a racing stable over on Long Island and one as
+general handyman at a yacht club up in Connecticut. He is convinced now
+that the rich are so hard pressed for servants that they'll hire almost
+anybody without requiring references.
+</p>
+<p>
+None of us will ever be rich; we're all convinced of that, the cost of
+impractical farming being what it is, but by the same token none of us
+would give up the pleasures of a landed proprietor's lot—the word
+landed being here used to imply one baited, hooked and caught; i.e., a
+landed sucker—for the life of a flat dweller again. It's a great
+life if a fellow doesn't weaken—and we'll never weaken.
+</p>
+<h3>
+THE END
+</h3>
+<div style="height: 6em;">
+<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abandoned Farmers, by Irvin S. Cobb
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